FIRST WIFE OF KAJO

 

            The day that fair-skinned woman stepped down from the boat, it seemed to Sima that bulen kaktu¹ suddenly waned. It was a clear and sunny morning when the woman came. The birds were fluttering and squawking above the fields of cogon and hillocks of coconut husks and bales of hay  beside the copra warehouses ; the scent of the ilang-ilangs and sampaguitas and dama de noches ,that blossomed copiously around the houses, pervaded the air; the dogs ,together with the goats, were running through the cogon field; and the trees were bearing many fruits .

It could have been the most bountiful harvest in Sima’s entire marriage life but the thought of the fair-skinned woman and the incoming kasfala², dampened the bulen kaktu atmosphere.

That day, the woman’s face was shaded by her colorful umbrella. Her long hair was gently ruffled by the warm wind as she clasped the arm of Sima’s husband, Kajo. To the villagers who have not seen her before, they thought she was a great datu’s daughter.

“Isn’t she a datu’s daughter?” some villagers asked. “Or of Spanish descent?”

 

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¹  [B’laan] fruiting season

² [B’laan]  negotiation

 

 

That day, the fair-skinned woman wore a black blouse with horizontal red accents and beadwork in triangular patterns, and a hand-loomed skirt, like that of a great datu’s daughter. A heavily- beaded belt was wrapped around her slender waist. Her skin glimmered under the tropical sun like grains of crystal-like sands by the shore, while her macopa lips curved into a bright smile.  Surrounded by bronze-skinned villagers, she radiated like bright a star.   

But she was neither a great datu’s daughter nor someone of Spanish descent who owned acres of lands near the Sangil community. She must just have been favored in looks by the spirits, the villagers just said.  She was not really the kind of person whom one could be jealous of, they kept telling Sima.  But the latter could not dispel self-pity and worry over her three sons who were now three, four, and six harvests old respectively.

Some villagers, especially Sima’s close friends, consoled her. “You cannot blame yourself, Sima, for you did everything for Kajo and your children. Look at the land you till, it is now bearing many fruits!”

“That woman? Hay…Does not even look industrious as you are, Sima.”

“You have the right to ask for a Kasfala , Sima. Now that Kajo’s marrying her. You are entitled, Sima, to ask whatever you want from Kajo.”

“Ay, remember that you were Kajo’s choice, ha? Not Fo Libun’s!”

But the day the villagers saw the woman, clinging to Kajo’s arms like a mamboni³ on seaside rocks, some of them, in whispers, said, “Sima could not blame Kajo for

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³ a small, round, usually black, shell that sticks on seaside rocks

marrying that woman.”

And again, they pitied Sima for the fair-skinned woman looked very young and fresh like a glistening green leaf after the rain.

Sima didn’t look the way she looked harvests ago.  She, as most of the villagers observed, looked older. Her cheeks seemed sunken now; wrinkles on her face were visible as the result of constant exposure to the sun. Her body had grown rotund after giving birth to three sons.

But the younger Sima, although not as attractive as the fair-skinned woman, was petite and also charming with her small nose, coal-black lashes and brown skin. Although

she was short, she still looked pretty back then in her albung takmun⁴ which she made herself.

She came from Sabang, the place next to Lipol where she met Kajo. Sabang was not far from Lipol--from there , in clear weather, one could see the fishing village in Lipol and the coconut trees on the hills beyond the village that disappeared in blue tints in the distance.

 One fine day, when cotton-ball clouds hung over the sweet potato and onion fields, Sima came to Lipol to sell coals and buy fish.  The sea was calm as a lake that she could see the reflection of the clouds and the deep green peninsula in the water. But the weather was unpredictable. When she left Sabang, the sky was clear that she thought it was fruiting season again.  But, at the pier, a few moments after she had tied up her small boat and carried the two sacks of charcoal to the quay, the cotton-ball clouds turned into

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⁴ B’laan costume

thunder clouds. It began to rain and a few moments later there was a downpour. 

 The sacks of coals that she had brought from her father’s warehouse were drenched in the rain. Sima, all soaked in the rain, hurried to the fishing village where this man, Kajo, was running after his goats, shooing them into the barn.

“You’re wet! Where are you heading? You may stay here. Here in the barn until the rain stops,” he shouted against the drumming of the rain on the rooftops.

 “I was to sell coals here but it all got wet in the rain. I left the sacks at the wharf,” Sima’s sad reply.

They sat beside each other in the barn, listening to the sound of rain on the roof. Sima could smell the scent of his skin, like a mixture of morning dew and lumber.

 It was already dark when the rain finally stopped and by then she was already dry. On her way back to the pier, Kajo called from the barn.

 “I can lend you this small lamp, Sima,” he said. He knew , although it was just a small lamp, that she could somehow use it on her way back home, while at sea and on the dreary roads in Sabang. 

That was how Sima met this man. Unlike the fair-skinned woman, Sima was not betrothed to Kajo. She, as the villagers said, was Kajo’s choice. After several harvests, Kajo went to Sabang to look for Sima and asked for her hand.

“I want to marry Sima, Tiyo,” Kajo had told Sima’s father that surprised both Sima and her father. However, with her father’s consent , Sima agreed to marry him.

 For months, they went through the tribe’s tradition.  Months before their wedding, Sima and Kajo served their forthcoming in-laws’ households.  While Kajo was chopping wood in her parent’s house, Sima was planting seeds in Kajo’s.  Having seen that she had grown the seeds, Kajo’s grandfather, who was very superstitious, had thought it as a sign that Sima herself was not a bad seed.

            But Sima did not bring happiness to Kajo’s grandfather after giving birth to three sons.  The old man, Fo Lagi⁵ Babo, had dreamt of granddaughters because for him, baby girls meant money. In time, he would betroth them to men of well-off families who could offer them a grand bride price.  But Sima failed to bring prosperity to their family, especially to Kajo’s grandfather.

            Kajo didn’t mind about having sons. In fact, he loved teaching his sons the task of men in the tribe.  Sometimes, he would bring them to the mountain where he grew his sweet potatoes.  For Sima , their life together was always happy like that bulen kaktu—full of flowering vegetables, full of hopes.

            But Grandfather Babo went to the neighboring island to find Kajo another wife. There, he found that fair-skinned woman. Fo Lagi Babo was wise enough to choose a half-B’laan woman like the fair-skinned woman. Bella’s father could have asked Kajo a bride price but her mother didn’t adhere to the practices of her husband.  Fo Lagi Babo would not spend a lot of money for the bride price, although he was still obliged to spend for the grand wedding feast which would be attended by the people from the fair-skinned woman’s village.

            Before the fair-skinned woman came into the village, the villagers thought that everything would be fine—that Kajo would not want another woman. But when they saw

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⁵ [B’laan] Grandfather

that woman, clinging to Kajo’s arms, some of Sima’s concerned friends went to Kajo’s farm , that day,  where Sima was busy removing the weeds that skirted around the coconut trees. They had walked far and climbed hills to get there, just to convince her to demand for a kasfala for her own good. The moment they arrived, they seemed as exhausted as Sima who was grimy all over: her loose shirt and shoulder-length hair was damp with sweat as if she had been there for hours . The veins on her soiled hands were a lot visible this time.

            “Sima…Hoy,Sima. She is in the island just for the kasfala , Sima,” one of the women told her.

            “You cannot just change your mind, Sima. Remember that you have sons to feed.”

            “That’s why I’m doing this now… So that I can prepare my children’s meal early, before Fo Lagi sends them back home,” Sima replied.

            “That’s not what we mean, Sima,” one of the women said softly. And after a long pause, she continued, “You have the right to have this land as Kajo’s limon sala⁶,” she reminded Sima.

“Limon sala,” she repeated, and after a long pause, she said, “Yes, I will ask for this farm, for his barn, and for the hut he had built for me! I must have everything he has!”

The women were surprised and were all happy for her. She must have realized that now, they thought. “That’s right , Sima. That’s right!”

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⁶ [B’laan tradition] “fine” for somebody’s short-comings or sins

 

“This farm is yours. Let’s tell Capitan Manyo about this and, for sure, he will agree with you. He will help you have this land.”

Then, the five women went back to the village to spread the news which, before the sunset, spread like fire around the village. Everybody in the village had been looking forward to it now.

“Will Kajo really give it to her?”

“I think he will. He should because it is his limon sala.”

“If he’s going to give everything, then… Jesus, his new wife will have nothing except the new hut he had built for her.”

“Sima even has the right to ask for horses.”

 “Hay…poor woman, this Bella. She must not allow Kajo to give everything because she’s going to starve!”

            “But Kajo can fish and plough.”

            It was already dusk when the people who would attend the kasfala gathered in Sima’s hut. Kajo and the fair-skinned woman were the first to arrive.

            “Sima?”

            Sima, who was weaving a cloth before the kasfala, opened the door and Kajo and the fair-skinned woman stood there, waiting for her to say a word. But Sima, not looking into their eyes , just motioned for them to enter, and she went back to her weaving. Until the Capitan arrived, they were all silent like shadows. They could hear the clinking of the beads and the brass bells of Sima’s necklace and bracelets as her skillful hands weaved a cloth that reflected the bright colors of the bulen kaktu. .

Kajo and the fair-skinned woman sat on the bamboo floor, watching Sima. It took a long while before the Capitan , who apologized profusely for coming late, arrived at Sima’s house. “Where are your children?” Capitan Manyo asked in a harsh voice, glancing at Sima and Kajo.

“They are in Fo Libun Babo’s house, Capitan. Fo Libun said, he’ll send them home after the kasfala.” Finally , she placed the fabric that she had just woven on the low rattan table beside her.

            “So, what’s this problem all about?” the Capitan began.

            “Sima…” Kajo interrupted. Looking at his first wife, he felt a great weight pressed upon him. His voice trailed.

            “I understand everything, Kajo,” Sima interrupted. A tiny smile touched her full lips.  “ And that’s why we are gathered here tonight.”

            “Sima, Fo Libun Babo looked for a wife for me in Tinina…”

            Sima’s gaze finally searched his face with eyes brimming over with unshed tears.

 Aware that Sima was now looking at them, the fair-skinned woman neither stirred nor spoke.

            “I understand, Kajo. You do not have to explain anything. And now that you are marrying her,” she said, glancing at the fair-skinned woman. “you are asking for my blessings. I cannot bless you, Kajo, unless you’ll give me whatever I’m asking from you.”

            Sima named the Barn, the farm, and the house that Kajo had built for her, and told the Capitan, “I liked to have all those things, Capitan,” she said firmly.

            Neighbors peeped from their windows and they could see that everything about the kasfala went well, for Sima didn’t cry in front of her husband and the fair-skinned woman.

After the kasfala and after Kajo and the fair-skinned woman left, Fo Libon Babo sent back her children. And now, Sima was watching her children sleeping on the floor. She listened to their soft breathing and she began to smile and laugh. She laughed at the night that had shut her world down. She smiled and laughed at her reflection in the mirror—at her wrinkled face and weary eyes… and at her calloused palms and stout body and sun-burnt skin, for all these…all these meant money.

Kajo had now given her the things she had asked for. But they couldn’t compensate for the pain the sight of Kajo and the fair-skinned woman in the village had caused her.

That night, when Sima’s neighbor slept, Sima took the lamp hanging on the wall. After lighting it, she shook gently her children’s shoulders. “Fiboy, you wake up. Kulen, Kulen… Fiboy…”

The still evening air was thick with mosquitoes and gnats. The dogs were curled up under the dark houses. The goats were shut in the barns, so close to each other like chicks huddled for warmth. The sea was smooth and the air was silent. The only sound was the chirping of the crickets in the bushes.

             Sima and her children were on the boat headed for Sabang. Feeling the warm breath of the bulen kaktu ocean breeze on their faces, they silently listened to the thump-thump-thump of the boat as its bow cuts a fine path through the calm, pitch-dark water that reflected the frail light of her lamp. It was the lamp Kajo had given her a few harvests ago, the same lamp that had lighted her way back to Sabang, the only thing she had brought with her and probably the only thing she owned now.

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THE NEXT HARVEST

 

               

It was now the end of the five months of waiting for the rows of corn to mature in Tagon hills.

It was dawn and the night had been cold. The April wind blew to the north of the Tagon Hills, causing the stiff stems and the long narrow leaves of the corn to sway under the faint light of the white moon.  My father’s purple-winged roosters beneath the annatto tree crowed thrice, flapping its wings as the wind created a crisp sound on our nipa roof. 

            Two moons had passed, it was told by a fortune teller, from the formation of the stars on Friday nights, that this harvest would be bountiful. The absence of the warning sound of almugan¹ at night, my father had told me in his letter, had also convinced him that he would be lucky this time. And in his letter a month ago, he asked me to come home.

            I was already awake when my father brewed coffee beans in a clay pot in our kitchen. Sprawled on our bamboo floor, I stared up at the ceiling which was fashioned from nipa and split wood shingles. I could hear the crackling of the burning coals in the kitchen and the sound of the grains that my father had sprinkled under the wooden ladder. There, the horde of hens pecked the grains merrily. A few minutes later, the aroma of the coffee floated through the air like the mist that spread thinly, before the sun came up, over the north of Tagon hills.

            “Pilo!” my father called out from the kitchen. “Pilo, get up now .Help me sharpen these plane blades. We will harvest the corns early today.”

The grating sound of his tools rubbed against a rough stone and the scent of burning coals met me in the kitchen. Mother was putting firewood under the clay pot suspended over the cooking platform by a wire connected to the ceiling. My father sat on a stool, his strong coffee on the table, and a tobacco between his lips.

“We will then send the corn to Don Rafael to pay our debts, and they will give the field back to us,” he told me. “We will then cut the mature corn and prepare the land for

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¹ [B’laan] wild dove

new seedlings and we will sell the corns of our next harvest to Don Rafael. It will help you pay your tuition fee, Pilo, and you will finish your studies this year. You will never worry about your tuition fee for we will have enough today. I have filled the north of Tagon hills with rows of corns and now, we will see the fruits of my labor,” my father said, smiling.

It was a serene smile, the kind of smile that I had been longing to see on his tired face since I arrived home a week ago. My father now seemed relieved that, after working very hard and enduring the heat of the sun, harvest was at last here.

“I’ve offered two chickens up the mountain for this harvest, Pilo, and as it seemed, the gods favored my wish. Now, you will see those golden kernels that I am talking about.”

“Nang am nse nga anuk ko fala an misa², Tasyo,” my mother mumbled, an annoyed expression on her face.

 After blowing on the coals through a bamboo pipe, mother took the bamboo tubes filled with bia-es from the table and deposited them in the small cabinet beneath the cooking platform. “Don’t touch this, Tasyo. I’m going to sell this to Tiyo Tudong.” Then mother went down to the well beside our house and fetched water for the onion springs that she had grown in our backyard.

It was a serious warning. My father and I both knew that if we’d drink the bia-es and get drunk, mother would not cease nagging until we became sober.

 

THE MORNING was bright. The mayas were twittering on the branches of the annatto tree beside our house. It felt good to be home again, I told myself. I looked out the window and, in silence, my father and I drank our strong coffee and gulped down the last before we left and went to the field with our plane blades. Then, the sound of the burning coals at home gradually diminished.

It had been three years now since I came up the Tagon hills and see the golden rows of corns and the chestnut frizzy fibers that protrude from the corns’ ears. And seeing these, with my father whose smile seemed brighter than the sun, was like a moment of

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² [B’laan] Don’t count the chicks when the eggs are not yet hatched.

dancing in the Sangil’s Juntra---a moment of getting soaked with sweat while watching the parade of dancing Sangil women whose lips were curved into crescent smiles.

            Yes, it was like a moment of dancing, and, together, in the penetrating fever of the afternoon, my father and I harvested the corns with our sharpened blades and deposited them into the rattan basket that we had brought with us.

           

 

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“That corn field is my life, Pilo,” my father told me while we were climbing up the northern slope of the Tagon hills. Silence seemed to stretch ominously between us, and we both knew the weight of this silence.

 We heard our heavy footsteps on the pebbles that paved the way to the north and on the crest of a hill at the center of Tagon, we stopped. From there, we could see the rows of corn in the north, wavering in the soft orange rays of the rising sun emerging behind the coconut trees at the edge of the field.

 “And I have worked hard just to get it back, Pilo.” Father looked at me. His foggy eyes were resting on my face.

“We will have it back, father,” I whispered, and the cool wind blew at us.

I did not know what made me say it. I was not yet sure if we would get enough that day , enough to pay our debts to Don Rafael. But I was glad that I was able to say those words to give him, give both of us, a ray of hope.

When I went to the city to study with the hope of learning how to cultivate this corn field, my father pawned it to the Spanish merchant Don Rafael. And we were given the sum I needed, pledging that we would pay double the sum we borrowed after three years. And that day was the cutoff date. Don Rafael, in firm voice, had made it clear to mother and father the past days that this harvest would be the last.

Mother pleaded with Don Rafael, “Please, sir, if our harvest will not be enough, we would pay the remaining amount the next harvest.” But this disappointed Father.

“Sir,” my father interrupted, looking into the merchant’s brown eyes. “We are here to tell you that we will pay you after the harvest.”  Then , he dragged my mother out of the merchant’s house.

“What are you doing, you, you!” mother hissed, and almost cried in anger.

“You shouldn’t have pleaded there. Didn’t you see? I’ve grown plenty of corns this year! And , Asya, you must remember what the fortune teller told us, the stars, the…the kind Gods!”

Father was hopeful and confident. That morning, in Tagon, he told me again,  “The fortune teller said, Pilo, that I will be lucky today. He doesn’t make mistakes in reading the stars, Pilo. One night, I asked him to go to our cornfield to tell me about this harvest. And after mapping the stars that hang over the fields and after reading them, he told me about the luck awaiting me there.”

“Yes, you’ve told me that in your letter.”

“Do you believe in it, son?” he asked.

I did not believe it for I’ve learned in the city that there’s no such exceptional luck in harvest if the corn are ravaged by pests. I was disappointed with that absurd prediction. But looking deep into his weary eyes, I could not tell him this.

“Yes, I believe it, Father.”

He stared at me as if watching the conflict of emotions on my face. “Do you believe in the God who blesses the corn fields in Balut Island?”

 After a brief silence, I found myself nodding. “Yes, I believe in him, father.”

“He is the one who is responsible for the growth and the flowering of the fields, son,” he told me.

            But…it is the tassel, father, I thought.  This tassel is carried by the wind and falls on to the silk, where it germinates and grows down through the silk… until it reaches the ovary. And, father, each fertilized ovary grows and develops into a kernel. There’s neither good nor angry spirits and gods up the mountain who control your harvest, father. There’s only this battle between you and the corn against the corn smuts.

I could have explained everything about growing corn —from the very top of the corn to its root and the number of seeds borne on a hard core called the cob. I could have explained about the pests that may wreak havoc on the growth of corns. I could have explained everything for I’ve spent years studying hard about it in the university. But it seemed that the brisk wind seized my words away.

            “Don’t you believe in the Almighty God, son?”

            “Y-Yes, I believe in him , father,” I said in a soft voice

             “Oh, the spirits , son…We must thank them and offer them gifts after this harvest!” he said ,and the corners of his mouth were raised in a smile. Then, we walked to our cornfield.

            “You start at the south of the field, Pilo, and we’ll meet at the center,” he told me as he slogged to the north of the field. 

In the heat of noon, my father and I reaped the corns in the north of Tagon hills. And a few minutes later, the tropical wind carried the song “Lamge”³ that my father was singing at the other end of the field.  Later , I found myself singing :

Lamge ha, lamha wadu

wonde gende wukelo genha,

            fambo ha wakela tun ha…

 

The sun had already eased to bed when we arrived home, bringing with us the baskets of yellow corns that were carried on the back of the horse we rented.

“Asya! Asya!” my father called out as we brought down the baskets from the horse’s back. Then, I saw my mother’s head peeping from the opened window in our kitchen. “Asya! Help us carry these!”

A broad smile flashed over the tired and sun burnt face of my father. He lifted one of the baskets, and still with the excitement of the harvest, he brought it near the wooden stairs of our nipa hut.

“But there’s so many, Tasyo,” mother exclaimed. Her eyes widened with disbelief and wonder, and her small mouth was partly open. “Oh, Tasyo… Oh, we can have the field back!” Then, she laughed and jumped with joy. And after a while, we found

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From the song Lamge which  means “to work”. Among the B’laans it is a practice to sing while engaged in heavy work so that they can forget their tasks. Literally, the song means:

What can we do?Oh, what can we do?

                This is our work, this should we do.

                Oh my, oh how is this to go on?

                Continue, then come back when you reach the top.

                “’Tis not there! ‘Tis not here!” they said.

                We’ll try we can make it.

                It’s not here, according to them, but don’t relax

                Don’t be surprised. They’re still far

                Let’s hurry

 

ourselves, me and my father, laughing with my mother.

Under the light of my mother’s kerosene lamp, we gathered around the baskets of yellow corn, getting ready to husk them.

“The next harvest will be more bountiful, Pilo. I believe that the spirits and the gods in the mountain in Tubay will help us still. The next harvest will be more bountiful. It will be more bountiful!”

Then ,we laughed and laughed in that seemingly “moment of dancing” in the Sangil’s Juntra. We laughed and laughed as if we were drunk with gallons of bia-es. And we laughed louder when Father showed to us the first husked corn. It was a beautiful corn, like it was transgenic! It had large cob holding hundreds of yellow and shiny kernels.

We laughed and husked the corns. Under that white moon, the wind swept the husks to the bamboo fence of our shack. And under that same moon, our laughter faded into the night. We were left open-mouthed, staring at the husked corns layered with gray parasites.

My father took another corn and husked it only to find out that gray parasites were clumped over the golden kernels. They were corn smuts. And almost all of the corns were ravaged by these parasitic fungus. Almost all.

Father covered his face with his trembling hands. “Oh, the gods! They must be angry. We have angered them. We have angered them. But why? We weren’t loud when we reaped the corn. Oh, what have I done to make them angry like this.” I could hear the depression in my father’s voice.

“Oh, keep your voice down, Tasyo. If the spirits hear you, they may not bless your crops again,” my mother said in a sad voice.

That night, I found myself lying on the floor again. I didn’t spread a mat on it. I propped my head on a pillow and stared up at the ceiling. We had just kept few of the healthy corns, but it could never pay our debts to Don Rafael.

“But the next harvest will be bountiful , Asya. The next harvest will be…” I heard my father say. “We have to please the gods and the spirits again.”

“But…there will be no more harvest, Tasyo,” my mother said sadly.

Later, I heard them singing and the cool night swallowed their voices.

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