Dayaw 2015: Reaching out to the Aytas in Porac, Pampanga

We thought it fitting to close year 2015 with indigenous color. We attended the Dayaw 2015 festival of indigenous peoples from Batanes to Sulu in Clark Field, Angeles City in mid-October, which was organized by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). Again, we had a great time learning about their 'native' culture through their colorful costumes, music and dance, and tasting their 'native' dishes, products of their own culinary arts.

Bugkalots and Aytas jamming with their indigenous musical instruments

We were present in the Dayaw outreach program in Barangay Villa Maria of Porac, Pampanga, and we saw how music and dance can be most effective in the integration of indigenous Filipino 'nations'. The Aytas of Villa Maria hosted the visit of indigenous peoples from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

We saw the Ayta and Bugkalot 'nations' having jovial oral exchanges about their musicality. The Aytas had the opportunity to try the gisada (two-string wooden violin) and the kolising (bamboo guitar) of the Bugkalots after listening while watching how these are played. It will not surprise us if the Porac Aytas will adapt lessons learned to their own musical instruments; after all, they also have a two-string guitar.

Binuho: Ayta way of cooking rice and chicken 

The visitors had a taste of Ayta culinary arts from the rice and chicken sinigang cooked in nodes of newly cut culms of buho (a bamboo species), one end open, one closed node remaining as bottom. The how-to’s:  after a period of immersion in water, measures of rice are wrapped in green banana leaves (about two cups when cooked), placed inside the buho, and cooked over fire. The sinigang mix is also called binuho (because it is cooked inside a node of buho). Bite-size cuts of chicken, sliced tomatoes and onions, strips of ginger and halved kamias are all mixed together with salt or fish sauce to taste. These are then scooped into the buho with enough space left to accommodate the broth produced from the cooking mix. The binuho is cooked over fire or glowing charcoal embers.  The Aytas also use buho for cooking a mix of river shrimps, crablets, small fishes, tomatoes and onions.

After the lunch of Ayta cuisine, it was fun to watch the Ayta children learning the basic dance movements of the visiting indigenous groups like the courtship and hunting dances of the Bugkalots. The enthusiasm of these children has to be sustained through the Dayaw festival and the schools of living traditions (SLT) so that indigenous culture can be preserved/conserved for generations to come.