Note: This photo-essay appeared as the 'living' feature of the 12-18 June 2015 issue of the FilAm Star, the weekly 'newspaper for Filipinos in mainstream America' published in San Francisco, CA. This blogger/author is its Manila-based Special News/Photo Correspondent.
Haw, haw the karabao, bantuten! - From a popular Filipino folk verse
Haw, haw the karabao, bantuten! - From a popular Filipino folk verse
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| For fun, the man knelt instead of his carabao during the recent Kneeling Carabao Festival in Pulilan, Bulacan. |
There were at least a hundred carabaos, some from
Pampanga and Nueva Ecija, that were brought to Pulilan, Bulacan for the Kneeling
Carabao Festival on 14 May 2015, eve of the feast day of San Isidro Labrador,
patron saint of farming folks. The gathering place teemed with dark ‘Tagalog’
and ‘Bulgarian’ bodies, the names that the owners called their animals, which
had short or long, curved or twisted, horns.
The native ‘Tagalog’ may be generic to Central Luzon. It
is simply ‘nwang’ to us Zambales Ilocanos. The non-native is either pure breed or
hybrid, a mestizo born of a native inahin (mother) and a foreign bulugan
(bull), both darker and taller than the native. There’s no malicious cultural
insinuation here.
The carabao lore we learned from the farmers added significant
value to the entertainment from the animals on parade. Only a few actually knelt along the way, when
they paused for a dousing of cold water, or in front of the church. You could actually count which would kneel
because they had pads around the knees.
The native is the typical swamp buffalo, the water
buffalo to the first Americans who set foot here. They need water, they are
averse to heat, said the farmers, and they may also succumb to heat stroke,
hence, the dousing. Probably the rains are most welcome to them when they get
yoked for the plowing during the wet season.
In our mind’s eye were our grade school days when we took the school carabao
to the river for a good bath. Otherwise, it just wallowed in the muddy pool
under the cashew tree in the school garden.
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| While on his knees, this carabao got doused during the Kneeling Carabao Festival parade. |
Regarding income from carabaos, a farmer said he gets
Php500 for the swift encounter of his bulugan with an inahin. He would get
around Php10,000 for the bulo, the young offspring, and around Php50,000 for an
eight-year-old.
While looking at the predominantly mestizo horde of carabaos
in the Pulilan festival, we remembered the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) in
the Science City of Munoz in Nueva Ecija, an agency attached to the Department
of Agriculture. It was established by
law in 1992 to answer the need “to improve productivity of the carabaos not
only in terms of draft but more importantly for milk and meat to increase
income, nutrition, and the general well-being of farmers. “
The mestizo carabaos could be the live products of PCC’s
successful implementation of its major services in the national carabao
development program, particularly, artificial insemination (AI), bull loan
program, frozen buffalo semen distribution, and provision of superior breeding
animals. Alongside are training programs
and extension services on feeding and management of dairy buffaloes, milk and
meat processing, among others.
To carry out these services, PCC has 13 branches
nationwide comprising state universities, and the stock farms and breeding
stations in La Carlota (Negros Occidental) and Ubay (Bohol), which the
government built in 1902.
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| A pale-skinned carabao - not the typical dark mestizo, |
The farmers we met in Pulilan could have benefited from
the artificial insemination performed by trained private village-based AI
technicians (VBAITs) or those from local government units, regional field units
of the Dept. of Agriculture, and the PCC regional centers.
The PCC info comics ‘Artificial Insemination sa Kalabaw’
informs that while the natural way of propagation is still the best, there are
not many bulls to do the job. Hence, it explains the whys and hows for
implanting semen from superior bulls like the Murrah buffalo into the inahin
cervix.
The importance of AI is emphasized: use of superior male
specie for propagation; increase of production of better breeds; prevention of diseases
through natural reproduction; avoiding costly maintenance of bulugan; and the
semen can be preserved for use for a longer time.
Some of the farmers could also have qualified for the
bull loan program if the AI was not available in their areas.
The PCC info comics ‘Pagpapahiram ng Bulugang Kalabaw’
explains how deserving farmers can join the program. They get purebred dairy-type Murrah bulls for
the natural mating with native or crossbred carabaos. The aim is to procreate animals
with improved productivity for milk and meat.
A farmer does not pay for the loaned bull. If he gets a
junior bull (2.5 years old and below), the loan is paid once it has produced 25
calves. On the other hand, if it’s a fertility-tested bull (three years old and
above), full payment will after producing 50 calves.
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| A Phil. Carabao Center photo of their mestizo carabaos. |
Historical memories tell that, once upon a time, carabaos
roamed in the wild, and they were game like the boar, deer and tamaraw for
Spanish, American and other foreign hunters. The typical carabao of olden days
had very long horns.
The carabao was an unsung hero during the
Philippine-American war. Edwin Wildman (1901) wrote that the propaganda war
against the Americans could not have been pursued on the run without the reliable
carabao. “When Aguinaldo retreated,” he said,
“La Independencia, with its few fonts of type, and its old Franklin handpress,
was packed into a carabao cart, and dragged along.”
It was an apolitical animal nonetheless. While it was an
insurrecto, according to John Bancroft Devins (1905), it was harnessed by the
American military forces to serve them too. After the fall of Aguinaldo in
Palanan, the Americans used carabaos in building peace-time Philippines.
Written in carabao Spanish-English, the folk verse “Haw,
haw the karabaw, bantuten”may have an amusing historical lore for explanation.
The carabao’s delight for muddy water or the esteros of
Old Manila made them smell repulsive (mabantot) to American visitors in the
early 1900s. But they were surprised or shocked to find that the animals also
were disgusted with them. They thought the animals hated their 'American' smell
(Devins, 1905) or 'white man' smell (Campbell Dauncey, 1906).
The official handbook (1903) for the Philippine exposition exhibit noted that "in the more remote towns, [carabaos] sometimes display a violent dislike for white men, occasionally stampeding at the mere smell of one." Charles Morris (1906) thought so too, that the buffalo was "prejudiced against white men, the scent of an European traveller being sometimes sufficient to set all the buffaloes in a village on the stampede," clarifying that this applied to "villages rarely visited by the whites." George Waldo Browne (1900), on the other hand, thought it was "an overmastering fear of foreigners, and the mere sight of a white man [that] has been known to stampede every buffalo in town."
The official handbook (1903) for the Philippine exposition exhibit noted that "in the more remote towns, [carabaos] sometimes display a violent dislike for white men, occasionally stampeding at the mere smell of one." Charles Morris (1906) thought so too, that the buffalo was "prejudiced against white men, the scent of an European traveller being sometimes sufficient to set all the buffaloes in a village on the stampede," clarifying that this applied to "villages rarely visited by the whites." George Waldo Browne (1900), on the other hand, thought it was "an overmastering fear of foreigners, and the mere sight of a white man [that] has been known to stampede every buffalo in town."
Whether they are still bantuten or not, the mestizo
carabao meat today is said to be comparable to beef in its physicochemical,
nutritional and palatable characteristics. PCC tells us that meat from properly
fed carabaos aged 18 to 24 months is equivalent to beef in tenderness and
juiciness. Well, carabao meat is now used in meat products like meat loaf,
corned beef and sausages. “Pen, pen, the sarapen!”
Cited references:
- Devins, John
Bancroft. (1905). An Observer in the
- Dauncey,
Campbell. (1906). An Englishwoman in the
- Morris, Charles. (1906). Our island empire: a hand-book of
- Browne, George Waldo. (1900). The pearl of the Orient : the Philippine Islands.
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