The Nothing-Nothing People, Waray-Waray
Retelling Magellan
500 years ago, Magellan passed through Leyte Gulf. My ancestors were already living off those waters, to the best of my knowledge. I have no idea what they were up to that day, but here’s a short story imagining the possibilities…
(the name Waray is said to mean “nothing”)
The sun hadn’t yet risen over the sea. The sky to the left was beginning to glow like a quiet fire. The rest of the sky was a soft blue broken by a mountain of rain clouds. And directly beneath that the wide sea was broken only by the broad outline of the island Homonhon. Macawile gazed at this scene hoping the sun would come soon to warm his skin. He heard small footsteps behind him and turned to see a boy carrying something wrapped in a banana leaf under one arm. A dusty-brown dog followed dutifully. The boy quietly took Macawile’s hand, raising it to his own forehead.
“Maupay…” Macawile said, craning his neck to catch the child’s sleepy eyes and get a polite morning greeting back.
“Maupay…,” he muttered back softly, as he raised up his banana-wrapped package to offer it.
“Salamat,” the young man chuckled as he took the package and unwrapped. It was lugao — sweet rice. Macawile lifted a foot onto the leaning coconut tree that made his seat; he propped up one knee and started picking at his breakfast.
The sun continued to warm up the sky. Macawile looked over his baluto from end to end — a narrow boat; attached on each side by thin wooden rods was a thick shaft of bamboo slightly shorter than the hull. He mentally reviewed the supplies he had stowed including a net, a basket, a spear. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the boy pick up the sundang machete from next to him on the coconut tree and take it out from its sheath. Macawile didn’t mind. And as he kept chewing his rice, he remembered when he was too young to carry his own tools. And how eager he was to get his own sundang. The boy wandered a few steps away with it, swinging idly at the underbrush. The dog was almost startled by the motion as it sniffed around the child’s feet, but it knew well enough to keep clear of a swinging sundang.
By the time he had picked the banana leaf clean, the sky was bright enough to have Macawile worried that he was taking too long. He picked up the sheath, shambled over to the baluto, and caught the boy’s attention.
“Hoy, pag-umangkon! An akon sundang, alayon…”
The boy walked over, still quietly and sleepily, and extended his arm towards the young man, pointing the blade directly towards him. Macawile gave the boy a look. “Is that how you hand someone a sundang?”
The boy simply lowered his arm, looking up at him with wide eyes waiting to be told what he’d done wrong. Macawile took the sundang by the handle and turned it around in the boy’s hands.
“Hand it to me backwards,” he explained. “It’s rude to point the sharp end at somebody.”
The boy did as he was told, pointing the blade down towards his own feet and offering the sundang handle-first.
“Salamat!” Macawile smiled.
A few moments later, Macawile was pushing his baluto into the water. Where the water was up to his knees, he climbed into the center of the boat, took a seat, and silently asked the boat if they would have good sailing today. He waited a moment… the boat answered with a steady rocking back and forth in the soft waves. He nodded to himself with satisfaction and turned to send the boy back home. But he was already walking back into the brush. The dog stood expectantly at the edge of the water, looking from the young man to the boy and back again. Macawile waved goodbye to the dog and took up his paddle.
As he worked the paddle in and out of the water, he was mindful not to get it tangled among the culapu leaves growing in the shallow water. As he pushed further away from the shore, he felt the wind cooling his skin, despite the rising sun bringing more and more heat. When the waves were strong enough that he could no longer see the sand or the culapu kelp beneath them, he unfurled the sail of his baluto and tried to catch the winds that would take him in the direction of Manicani island.
~~~~~~~~
After an hour or two of sailing, Macawile was far from the shoreline of Samar behind him. He kept an eye out for any sign of fish. Eventually, he saw a fish leap out of the water not too far ahead of him. He was grateful for a lucky day of sailing indeed! It was the right size and color to be a black snapper, or so he’d hoped. He furled his sail and readied his net. When he was close to where he thought he’d seen the fish jump, with the paddle Macawile brought the baluto to a stop as best he could. And he stood up with his net slung over his shoulder. He carefully edged to one end of the boat, constantly adjusting his footing with the motion of the waves. Then, twisting his body he threw the net off his shoulder, holding the line by the same hand. The rocks weighing down the edge of the net hit the water in a circle and the cords slipped underwater. After several moments, Macawile would pull up the line and hopefully find some decently-sized fish shaking about in the net. He repeated the process until his basket was just about full.
~~~~~~~~
After at least an hour of casting and recasting his net, Macawile sailed on. The sun was still well above the horizon, so he was making decent time.
Finally, Manicani island was nearly all he could see ahead of him. He was passing several sandy shoals to his left, and Homonhon still dominated the horizon ahead and to the right, with its mountain of a rain cloud above. Macawile kept his distance from the coast of Manicani, while he turned right to pass around to it’s far side, where he had been instructed to meet his uncle.
At last, while the sun was still not yet touching the horizon behind him, Macawile came upon a cluster of boats off the coast of Manicani. He waved at them as he approached and announced himself, “Maupay!”
Amongst the voices greeting him in return he heard his uncle. As he paddled even closer with his sail furled he was able to recognize the faces of his relatives on one large boat and a couple balutos like his own. Some strangers who might’ve looked vaguely familiar occupied a few more boats among them. Macawile paddled up close to his uncle’s large boracay boat. He climbed from his boat to the larger one and politely lifted his uncle’s hand to his own forehead, asking for a blessing.
“Maupay nga culop, Batá…”
“Maupay!” his uncle replied, with a proud smile.
Macawile then reached back to his baluto and pulled the basket from it. He offered it to his uncle, telling him it was a fresh catch and that he hoped it would feed the family well.
Taking the basket and looking it over, his face lit up. “Lapu-lapu!” he exclaimed, “that’s a strong fish, always good to eat! Salamat, my umangkon…” and he handed the basket to one of Macawile’s cousins to stow. “Macawile! Thank you for coming,” he continued, taking on a slightly sterner face. “You taking care of your Nanay?”
“O o,” the young man confirmed with a nod. He took a seat on the edge of the boracay and held his baluto close with one hand.
His Uncle returned the nod, unsurprised. “My umangkon Macawile, do you want to go to Cebu?”
“Cebu?” Macawile replied, a little surprised, “what’s in Cebu, the market?”
“The market! I need to sell all these,” and he waved his hand over his cargo, partly covered in rice mats. Some piles of coconuts in different stages were partly visible; hairy brown lahing and smooth green silot.
“You’re not going to sell them here?”
“You ever been to the market at Cebu?”
Macawile was quiet, knowing his uncle knew the answer to that.
“There’s so much more to buy there! And more people to sell to. Look at this,” he said as he pulled his kampilan sword and sheath out from his belt. “I know I always see you admiring this…” He turned it over in his hand, showing off the leatherwork on the sheath while keeping the carved handle and pommel easy for Macawile to see. Just seeing the craftmanship of the wooden monstrous face was enough for Macawile to know the blade was expensive quality too.
“I’ll buy you one in Cebu, eh?” His uncle continued, tucking the kampilan away again. We need help on here. And when we get there. You’re a strong man!”
“Maybe…” Macawile wasn’t used to sailing that far. And he knew his uncle was flattering him, but still he’d be safe among family.
“Tatay wants to sell to the new Chinese people,” one of Macawile’s cousins explained. Seeing Macawile still unsure, he continued, “there are some people at Homonhon right now,” and he casually pointed with a wag of his chin in the direction of the island beyond the other boats.
“O o,” a stranger acknowledged from an unfamiliar boracay. “We saw them. Their skin is light. They sail in big jong boats — “
“And they like to buy coconuts!” Uncle interjected.
The stranger explained, “some of them are sick, so they bartered some things for food.”
“Like this,” another stranger called out from next to the first one and lifted a red hat off his head. “And this,” he added, pulling out a mirror from under his bench.
Macawile turned back to his uncle. “Batá, are you just going to go over there? To Homonhon?”
His uncle shook his head, and one of the strangers — who apparently came from either Suluan or Homonhon — said, “they’re leaving by now. They wanted us to take them to Cebu.”
“Look, you can see them now!” His uncle pointed across the water and Macawile saw three boats far away sailing along Homonhon island. They had white sails and black hulls larger than his uncle’s boracay, but it was hard to tell how much larger from such a distance.
“That’s what a jong looks like?” Macawile asked aloud to no one in particular.
“You’ve never seen one?” His uncle asked, and again Macawile stayed quiet, knowing his Uncle knew the answer.
“I thought they didn’t come here. Just Cebu,” Macawile stated.
After a moment, one of the Suluano boatmen offered a guess, “Maybe they got lost. Like the wind took them too far. That’s why they had to ask where Cebu is…”
A few more moments later, Macawile stopped wondering. And the crowd simply watched the unfamiliar ships in the distance sailing through the waters they’d known their whole lives.
This is part 3 of Retelling Magellan’s Philippines
Next chapter: “The Harbormaster of Cebu”
Previous chapter: “The Boy from Sumatra”
