Lumad Children

Lumad children are a very important part of the tribal community. They not only represent a family’s stature but more importantly, the continuance of the lumad way of life. Similar with other cultures from around the world, children are an assurance that life must go on: that a community will continue to thrive on its own ideals, culture and identity.

In the Bagobo way, children popularly learn by “doing or through oral instruction”. Adults typically show them how a thing is to be done and the children just follow suit. Planting crops, weaving, hunting or even using the guidance of stars and planets (baatik’ ) as basis for agriculture are taught directly through a demonstration of that skill.

In the past, before the coming of the Spaniards, there were no classrooms as there were neither formal education to speak of. Everything had to be learned from direct experience. As a way of example, old Bagobos “teach” their young not to hunt for frogs in the river at certain times of the month.

Typically considered a house meal during the past, frogs are hunted by the Bagobos in the river at night where frogs are easy to catch by “spearing them” (manuho’g bak-bak). However, during certain lunar cycles, when the moon is at its zenith, certain poisonous snakes hunt in the river and may cause untimely deaths among the people hunting in the vicinity. During the occasion, there will be a scarcity of frogs in that river and that the usual noisy and “croaky” ambiance of that area in the river will be replaced by a “deathly silence”. Here, frog hunting will have to be discouraged among the men and the eager young boys.

In many occasions too, children are taught during evenings, but this usually involves teachings of morality, belief and stories of their ancestors. Since the day is generally reserved for the demonstration of a physical skill or technique, the nighttime is used for giving oral advice to young people.

One of the special things that are being taught to children during the evenings are lessons on morality. They are taught to respect their parents, grandparents and other people in the community. They are being taught that respect is the foundation by which a community is built. Disregard it and everything becomes chaotic or even violent.

Children are typically chastised on the value of hard work (in the fields or house chores), to observe  fair speech that would not offend others, to learn to listen more so that one would learn more, to be careful with pranks and jokes as it might offend other people and that you might get hurt, or to be careful with whom you associate with as it will have an influence in your attitude (such as people who continually drink and fight), to not touch other people or other people’s property as it might offend their sensibilities and taboos such as not to laugh at animals since its spirit guardian might punish you and make you ill or even laugh during an ocassion of storm or lightning.

If for some reason children do not follow the rules being set by their elders, they are punished. Usually this involves a beating or whipping. Thin but hard rattan or bamboo sticks are a favorite whipping tool of the old people. On some rare ocassions, even an abaca whip can be utilized to inflict pain just to prove the point.

Today, lumad children are provided with free education, healthcare and are slowly being integrated into the mainstream of the modern society. Both the national offices for the indigenous peoples and the local government in Davao assist in the delivery of these multi-services to “cultural communities.” Ostensibly, the objective is to affect the eventual “assimilation” of tribal peoples into the modern society.

Assimilation has its pros and cons. But that discussion is for another time.

Meanwhile in the hinterlands of Davao City, Davao del Sur and North Cotabato, where the influence of modernization is less apparent, lumad children still learn, the hard way.

A lumad girl wearing an abaca (hemp) inspired dress. The abaca-woven dress is termed as “inabal” in Bagobo dialect. Note the girl’s colorful sash and the basket (lob-ban) that she carriesat her back.  See also the leg bands (tikos) worn by the girl.

Lumad children in their abaca-inspired garment pose for the camera.