Bisayang dako

Another sourcebook on Cebuano culture and arts entitled Bisayangdako: Writing Cebuano Culture and Arts was launched on Sept.  26, 2015 on the 24th anniversary of WILA (Women in Literary Arts).  Written by Dr. Erlinda Kintanar-Alburo and published by the USC Press, the book is a collection of 64 essays on local matters which readers might have missed.  Most of the essays were culled from the columns of Alburo  in “Diyandi” in the Freeman Magazine and “Promdiwise” in Sugbo News, both of which do not exist anymore.  Other essays were papers presented  in anthropology and literature fora.  Dyandi means “art” in old Cebuano. Alburo wrote  in response to the sparseness of media exposure of Cebuano culture and arts in the national scene.  In her preface, Alburo writes  that Cebu is fortunate in that its three dailies feature culture and arts “more or less consistently” while outside no one seems to know or care what we are doing here.  The essays are divided into seven groups:  On Culture and Arts, On Folklore, On History, On the Literary Arts, On the Native Tongue, On Women Writing and On Men Writing.

Ethnic Literature and Identities, Muslim Traces in Local Culture, and a Library to Serve Local Culture are among the features of the first grouping.  The Cebuano Studies Center of which the author once served as its director was first conceived as an answer to the growing demand for research services in local history and vernacular literature, two fields with strong library support (the Cebuano Studies Center is part of the extension services of the University of San Carlos).  It is not just a passive partner in research that provides resources to the Cebuano community, but it has taken a more active role in encouraging Cebuano studies and in promoting Cebuano culture and arts.  An important project of the Center is the oral history series which consists of taped interviews of “living treasure,” witnesses to past events.  These are significant persons like politicians, businessmen, writers and artists.  “These resources became invaluable to researchers who need primary sources and the data generated by the interview provide texts that may be studied and provide core for a cultural activity.”  A recently completed project sponsored by the Center and funded by the Provincial Capitol is the 55-volume Town History Project, which has been distributed to  different public schools in the province.

The so-called “live byproducts of research” are the Cultural Festivals and fairs (every town puts up its own festival during fiestas, and the organizers have to research on local practices, applicable to their own area); Contests and Performances (authentic examples in dance, song and poetry have to be examined before adaptations can be made); Exhibits (which may use the photo collection with captions based on primary sources).  Poetry reading and dramatic performances can be included here.  These events surely enrich the local scenery and give a sense of pride and identity to the local people, whose culture is now threatened by “contemporary homogenizing forces like globalization.”

Such a library as the Cebuano Studies Center has helped enliven the local culture of the Cebuano community, first, in enhancing the cultural awareness  in the Cebuano community not only through its functions as a public library and a center of educational activities as symposia, workshops and lectures, but through the assistance it has extended to local  governments and various community associations.  Its founding director Dr. Resil Mojares observes that there is a new level of cultural awareness in Cebu today indicated, among others, by the fact that there are public museums being put up in the city and the provincial and city governments have created cultural commissions. Second, the library also performs an active role in academic activities in the country particularly in its organizational activities, publications, lectures and research in the fields of history, literature, folklore, linguistics, anthropology and lately, gender studies (to be called a national conference, any such event has to have the participation of the Cebuano or Visayas area).  Alburo looks forward to a time when researchers at the municipal level will have their own local library (and museum) to provide them constantly with the resources to re-present the local culture in more lively terms than the usual, that will involve the whole community.
Incidentally, at the launching of the book, I was asked to read  an excerpt  on “History and the Cebuano Body”, which I find interesting and challenging.  It starts with a comment by a constant

British visitor to Cebu who wrote a novel on Lapu-Lapu and Magellan, who wondered why the statues of Lapu-Lapu bear no tattoos even if history books say that body painting was a mark of the Bisayan warrior of old.  She admits that she should have told him that our notions of beauty and body beautiful have undergone changes under  two colonial masters and the smooth untextured body as sculpture model is now taken for granted.  Only recently have some painters revived the art of body painting but only for decoration.  For Alburo the body as site of history is an interesting topic. She cites that history and folklore show us that the pleasure-loving and easygoing Bisayans always valued long, shiny and fragrant hair.  Alburo confessed that she was prompted to write on the topic  by a paper read during the recent seminar-workshop in Visayan Studies by a young history teacher at USC.  The paper was on the Cebuano body as a medium of culture and of culture change. She liked his choice of two Cebuano zarzuelas as sources for his study:  Vicente Sotto’s “Gugma sa Yutang Natawhan” (1902) considered the first realistic play in Cebuano, and is about the revolution against Spain, and Buenaventura Rodriguez’s “Mini” set during “peacetime and deals with the quest for the elusive authentic self.  She invites the reader to complete for himself a picture of the changes through our history by collecting images showing body movement, dress and hairstyles, hygienic practices, food tastes (and, perhaps, even notions of other bodily pleasures).  For the literature fan, there is a whole set of fictive, dramatic and poetic material to pore through.  For the cut-and-paste scrapbook lover (or the scan-and-save computer addict) there are probably still some old magazines in Lola’s aparador with pages on fashion and fashion accessories, recipes, exercises, health tips and hairstyles to amuse yourself with.

There’s so much to read and enjoy in Alburo’s book  Thank you, Linda.  Looking forward to more publications on Cebuano culture and arts.  Grab a copy now at the USC Museum.