PAPERS

The Ethnokinship Theory of Literature
By Macario D. Tiu

(Translation of a paper read in Cebuano at the "Specialists' Conference on Aesthetics and Philippine Literature" sponsored by the National Commission on Culture and the Arts, Subic, Zambales , 12-14 November 2003.)

WHAT I WILL DO is first, define the ethnokinship theory of literature; second, provide some examples to clarify the theory; and third, discuss its implications to writers like us.

First, let me define ethnokiship.

By ethnokinship I mean the organization of people according to certain ethnic identifiers such as race, ancestry, language, traditions, beliefs, customs, rituals, practices, and history. The more elements of identity that people have in common, the stronger their bond and attachment to each other. The family, clan, tribe, and nation, constitute the levels of ethnokinship communities.[i]

It goes without saying that the purer the composition of the community, the stronger is its bond. Imagine for the members of the community to have a common ancestry, a common worldview, a common religion, and a common language?[ii]

In our history, we know that the Moros were able to form a complex social organization. They were able to establish sultanates that governed almost the entire members of their tribes. Meanwhile, some Lumads might have reached the clan level of social organization, but a lot of them attained the baranganic level only. Most Lumad communities today would remain at the baranganic level only.

I will start with the simple ethnokinship organization of the Lumads as the unit of analysis because their use of literature is simple and can easily be understood. Their literature consists of many genres such as myths, legends, epics, folk narratives, songs, sayings, etc.

From the folklorists, we know the uses of folk literature. It is a form of entertainment; it is a tool for education and instruction; it justifies the rituals and institutions of society, and it guides the members of the tribe to follow certain norms of behavior.[iii]

My observation is that Lumad oral literature follows the doctrine of Horace that literature should be both dulce et utile[iv] -- that is, it must both delight and instruct. The Lumads do not problematize the dichotomy between literature as art and literature as instruction the way we make it a big issue today as apparently many modern writers and poets are only concerned with the perfection of the dulce aspect of art.

There are actually Lumad poets who also like to show off their dulce skills, but invariably they will always inject into their works some lesson or value. In the bayok which is a chanted verbal joust similar to the Tagalog balagtasan, two poets will try to outdo each other in their poetic skills by throwing flowery verses at each other. In this courtship bayok that I will use as example, the father of the girl denies he has a daughter of marriageable age when a young man comes a-courting. This is how the young man responds:

I know/ I am ready/ There are flowers in your room/ Two flowers/
Your children/ Your youngest/ If I can but stay for a brief shelter/
If it were just an ordinary woman/ I would not be so attracted/ The thing That lured me/ The thing that has prompted me/ Is the closeness of the family/ Her closeness with her well-known brothers/ I just long to shelter myself/Under the balete tree..[v]

In this bayok, the poet does not only display his skill; he also teaches what one should look for in a marriage - the closeness of the family. The bayok listeners will always pick up some lessons like this one.

The other Lumad literary genres carry weightier functions. Their myths relate the genealogy of their family, the origin of the universe and the world, and the meaning of their institutions. As one author puts it: "Myth was and still is the basis of morality, governments, and national identity." [vi] These myths do no only explain things, they also claim and appropriate the things that surround the territory of the tribe. This territory includes the spaces in the skyworld because that is where the important members of their tribe went in a glorious moment of rapture.[vii]

Through their epics and legends, the Lumads get to know their braves and heroes whom they respect as their role models. From these folk narratives they likewise learn about their ancestors and the various deities. In short, their literature constitutes the record of their life as a people or community. It is their history, their religion, their very life.

But literature does not only imitate life and society as Aristotle says.[viii] It does not only mirror the past or present. Its most important function is to unify the people, to rally them, and encourage them to defend, preserve, and advance community interests.

One observation I have made about current Lumad literary production is the theme of lament about their present plight as Lumads. The lament centers on the loss of their land and wealth.[ix] Often the lament is accompanied by a call to restore the glory of their tribe. If they will act on this dream as expressed in their literature, then, won't we have a reversal in which life imitates art? I think this has happened many times in real life.

Based on these observations, I present the main features of the ethnokinship theory of literature.

Literature serves the entire community. The myths, epics, legends, and other artistic creations are community acts of imagining and appropriating. Literature proceeds from a worldview that unifies the community and reinforces community identity and loyalty. All artistic expressions are rooted in the community and are therefore familiar to and are easily understood by the entire community. The aim of literature is to unify, perpetuate, and advance the community.[x]

Let us see how the ethnokinship theory of literature views certain issues.

Take the metaphor. In its broadest sense, a metaphor means finding something common in dissimilar things.[xi] According to the ethnokinship theory, the comparison is only effective if the things being compared are familiar to the community. The comparison produces something new, but it is still a familiar image to the community.[xii]

Listen to this description of a Subanon princess:

Her hair is wavy and shiny, her teeth are capped with gold. When she laughs, it sounds like a passing lightning, her fingers are like newly sprouting ginger, her heel is like a newly-laid egg; her heels are full of anklets, her neck is full of necklaces, and rings decorate her fingers.[xiii]

Her laughter sounding like a passing lightning? Even if we are not Subanen we can easily see the image intended by the Subanen poet. Indeed when the princess laughs, her gold-capped teeth flash like lightning. What about a shout? How is it described? "Shout like a bamboo being split," one Bukidnon poet says.[xiv]

This is how a Mandaya balyan[xv] motivates three musicians playing different musical instruments simultaneously. While one is playing a suding (jaws harp), the second a kudlong (guitar), and the third a bonabon (flute), the balyan chants:

Harmonize it/ Play it as best as you can/ Be precise in your music-making/ Till you strum the final note/ May your music be like the giyuwall (basket design) / Your every attempt like the link in a chain/ Correct!/Exact. [xvi]

Music as beautiful and precise as an intricate basket design? I am tickled by the freshness of this comparison. I can imagine the magic of synesthesia at work, the different notes from the different musical instruments being woven into a beautiful basket design! That is how clear the imagery is of beautiful music in a Mandaya community. Isn't the balyan a master poet, skilled in using figurative devices rooted in her surroundings, familiar, and easily understood by the community?

The community poet clarifies, simplifies, and makes things understood. As it is said, the poet's origin is the balyan. The balyan is the bridge between humans and the spirit world. She interprets what the deities say. She clarifies what is strange or mysterious. She is the simplifier. She is the clarifier. She familiarizes,[xvii] and communitizes things. That is the role of the poet.

In my view, the difference between the language of literature and the language of ordinary speech arose from the need to memorize the myths, epics, and legends. These materials contain the community's history and religion that needed to be passed on, and which could only be done orally in preliterate societies. As we know, it is easier to memorize things if they are rhymed and metered. Now that writing is available, we are seeing more literary works imitating ordinary speech.

I still need to study how many ancient words are used in modern Lumad literary productions. In my view, these words are residual words from ancient speech used by the ancestors of the tribe. These words were commonly used by the people in the olden times. As language also evolves, some words are disused and may no longer be understood by later generations. As the bridge between humans and the spirit world, and as the bridge between the past and the present, the poet as balyan should be familiar with these words and might use them in her works. Her intention is not to make her work difficult or to confuse her audience. She has merely drawn from the wisdom of the ancients.[xviii] Even then, as a whole, her work is understood by all members of the community because it is rooted in a common worldview and a common language.

On this point I am in agreement with T.S. Eliot who views the poet as "recapitulating, or better, preserving intact, his state of the race-history, of keeping his communication open with his own childhood and that of the race while reaching forward into the future."[xix]

On the issue of the universality of art, the big question is why certain works produced by ancient ruling classes in ancient times (like the Greek classics) are still enjoyed by people and continue to move them today, even cutting across classes? Where does the universality of art and literature come from? According to the ethnokinship theory, the universality of art and literature comes from the familiarity of the stories or themes. Themes like incest, war, friendship, heroism[xx] are all familiar themes in other communities in other parts of the world. Therefore even if the stories and themes are ancient, they resonate through the centuries and are understood by different communities.

These are only some musings on the ethnokinship theory of literature derived from the study of Lumad literature. What is its value for us today?

The Lumads, like all of us, underwent a long historical process that brought us together to live in a complex society called the Philippines. We will observe that the Philippines is composed of many ethnokinship systems, each one possessing its own literature. Lumad literature is only one of the literatures of the Philippines, occupying the lowest status, which reflects the Lumads' status in our society.

The literatures of the other majority ethnokinship groupings like the Bisayans and Ilocanos occupy almost the same position as that of the Lumads. At least they are now included as a category in some literary competitions, and are being studied under the label regional literatures. But they're still considered third class. Tagalog or Filipino literature is second class. There have been attempts to advance it as the principal language, but the position of our leadership is wishy-washy on the matter. Just recently the Macapagal-Arroyo administration declared it her policy to make English supreme again in our schools. This will make literature written in English, which we already consider our national literature, more dominant and important.

I wish to discuss this matter in the light of the ethnokinship theory. First, we have to understand that the aim of any colonial project is to destroy a community in order to subjugate it. It is a violent process of domination and subordination. Arms are used to crush another community. After the defeat of the target of colonization, the victors will try to win the hearts and minds of the subject population. In essence, a colonial project is a brutal, ruthless, and evil project of oppression and exploitation. No reason can ever justify a colonial project, even the so-called benefits that trickle down to the subjugated.[xxi] That is why when a colonial project is carried out, it is immediately opposed by the concerned community with their own anti-colonial project.

But we know that we lost in our efforts. The elites were the first to transfer their loyalty to the colonizers to get a share in the political and economic benefits. They abandoned their community, our national community, in favor of the interests of the colonialists. And the abandonment of community continues to this day.

Who pays attention to our community? Where are our political, economic, and industrial leaders? Are they taking any pains to make our community thrive, grow, and become strong? The government that we inherited from the colonizers still retains its function of servicing the interests of the few. It remains the object of shameless plunder, and the situation of our national community continues to deteriorate. Because of the sense of utter hopelessness, one out of four Filipinos now wants to get out of the Philippines.[xxii] Because they are abandoned anyway, they might as well get out of the vast quagmire of poverty that is called the Philippines.

But while we like to criticize our political and economic leaders, what have we done as writers and poets? Have we not also abandoned our community?

The privileging of English illustrates the complete success of the colonial project of the Americans. While their weapons of mass destruction are no longer in Subic, the toxic wastes that they left behind continue to dissolve the bonds of community and warp the psyche of the nation. The Americans are highly successful colonizers not only because they were able to seize our wealth, but also because they captured our soul, hostaged our literature, and smothered our language, or in the words of Ka Amado Hernandez, "pati wikang minana mo'y busabos ng ibang wika." In abandoning our language, we also abandoned our community.

We like to boast of our knowledge of English and our literature in English. We like to tell others that we learned English very quickly as a people. But we did not realize that the appearance of the first Philippine literature in English also marked the beginning of the abandonment of our community.

Where are the poets of the community who will "clarify, simplify, and make things understandable?" Where are the poets whose "artistic expressions are rooted in the community and are therefore familiar to and easily understood by the entire community?" Where are the poets who will "unify the community, make it thrive and prosper?"

The smartest, the brightest, and the most talented have abandoned community, drunk as they are with a foreign language, foreign symbolism, foreign rhyme, and a foreign worldview implanted by the colonial project.

The destruction of the community has become complete, with the vast majority of its members abandoned by their political, economic, cultural, and literary leaders. Do we still wonder why our country is in such a dire strait?

The issue of language is a basic issue in literature because language expresses our culture and our life as a people. All advanced nations know that the teaching of language and literature is the foundation of nationalism.[xxiii]. We should reflect on this seriously because our literature has long been divorced from our community.

Some of us will react to this advocacy of using our own language. Can we not be nationalist if we are Inglesero? Many Ingleseros claim they are nationalists. Rizal was an Espanyolero, wasn't he? At least he weaponized Spanish to advance nationalism. But I doubt a true nationalist will ever advocate making Spanish or English the national language.[xxiv]

Some simply do not wish to use their own language. They feel baduy about it, or are nauseated outright. And why not? That is what is taught in school. If you don't know English, you're dumb. You're punished. You're abandoned.

Some want to write in their own language, but do they have a venue? Our publishers have also abandoned community. There's no profit there. The vast members of our community don't read. In the first place, they can't afford to buy books, magazines, newspapers. Puwes, abandon them.

And there are those who shake with indignation because they want to be read by the entire world. It is only English that will allow them that glory because it is an international language. Why should anybody prevent them from talking to the world community? In this postcolonial, postmodern globalized era? Indeed, who would dare prevent anybody from talking to the world? I myself want to talk to the world. [xxv] And if I want to talk to Martians, why would anybody prevent me from doing so?

But who will talk to our own community that is not yet postpoor or postbackward?

Our abandoned community faces heavy, difficult, and complex problems. There must be a unified action by our political, economic, educational, and cultural leaders if we are to rebuild the community that is the Philippines and propel it towards development. We need to continue engaging in an anti-colonial project to mobilize our people and destroy the structures and modes of thinking imposed by the colonial project which continue to wreck havoc on our nation. We - writers, poets, dramatists - let us talk to our own community. Let us reach out to the vast members of our poor and backward community in the language that they understand - their own language, our own language. Let us rebuild our national dream and restore the glory of our community. Perhaps, it will encourage others to return to community. Perhaps, hope will return and our salvation will begin.

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[i] Macario D. Tiu. "Worldview, community, and Lumad poetics." Tambara Vol 18, 2001, 141.

[ii] Compare this with the observation of Desmond Morris ug Peter Marsh, Tribes, Pyramid, London, 1988, 4. "There is much greater sense of belonging among tribal members, whatever their position and feeling of common purpose."

[iii] Tiu 2001, 137-154. From Bascom's discussion on the uses of folklore. William R. Bascom. "Four functions of folklore," Journal of American Folklore. Vol. 67. No. 266. Oct-Dec 1954.

[iv] "Sweet and useful." Horace insists the poet should give his reader "pleasure at the same time as he instructs him." T.S. Dorsch. Trans., with introduction. Classical literary criticism. Penguin Books, 1965, 22.

[v] Mga awit at tugtuging Mandaya, audiotape, Development Education Media Services (DEMS), Davao City, 1989.

[vi] J.F. Bierlein. Parallel myths, Ballantine Books, New York, 1994, 5.

[vii] Some Lumad myths and epics end with the mass assumption of tribal members to heaven. They also have names and stories about the stars or their formations. For the Teduray's Seretar. see Stuart A. Schelegel. Wisdom from a rainforest, the spiritual journey of an anthropologist, Ateneo de Manila Press, Quezon City, 1999.

[viii] Aristotle used the term mimesis, usually translated to mean imitation of life or reality.

[ix] Dream weavers, video, BookMark, Inc. 1999, and Mga awit at tugtuging Mandaya, audiotape, DEMS, 1989.

[x] Plato was highly critical of myths and wanted to banish poets from his ideal republic because they spread stories that are "ugly and immoral, as well as false, misrepresenting the nature of gods and heroes." Francis MacDonald Cornford, trans., with introduction and notes. The republic of Plato, Oxford University Press, 1941, 69.

Indeed some myths and legends can be harmful; some have proved to be the tribe's undoing. The myths centered on the belief of a white and bearded god of the world ultimately destroyed the empires of the Aztecs and Incas. "Viracocha/Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl." http://www.geocities.com/Area5/Vault/9054/viraco/html. They were totally unprepared when the Spaniards came. They failed to comprehend that the Spaniards came as conquerors, and not as their gods or the messengers of the gods.

In Africa, the black Boshongo tribe believes that their creator is a white god named Bumba. "An African cosmogony, an account from the Boshongo, a Central Bantu tribe of the Lunda Cluster." http://alexm.here.ru?mirrors/www.enteract.com/jwalz/Eliade/051.html Maria Leach, The beginning, New York , 1956, 145-146, translated and adapted from E. Torday and J. A. Joyce, Les Boshongo, 2. I wonder what the effect this belief in a white creator god has on the psyche of the black Boshongos.

[xi] The Merriam Webster Dictionary 1997 defines metaphor as "a figure of speech in which a word for one idea or thing is used in place of another to suggest a likeness between them (as in "the ship plows the sea")

[xii] If it is not fresh, then the expression becomes trite.

[xiii] Bertram Tiemeyer, OFM. ed., Ang Kultura sa mga Subanan, mituluhiya pagtuo ug mga kasaulogan. Franciscan Province of San Pedro Bautista in the Philippines, Quezon City, 2001, 214. The original Subanen:

Buk pinggabaran, ngisi pinlasaban, bu maktawa ilanda ma gilat pagbayan, tandu paksamut luya, sayil pagamumanuk, pinintilan kani siningkilan, lig mipanu nak sabat, pinanduan miapad nak sising.

[xiv] Carmen C. Unabia, collector and with introduction. Tula at kuwento ng katutubong Bukidnon. Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City, 1996, 127. The original in Binukid: "Kulahi ko ba bagtek."

[xv] Mandaya for priest or priestess. Mabalyan in Bagobo, and baylan in other languages.

[xvi] Mga awit at tugtuging Mandaya, audiotape, DEMS, 1989. The original in Mandaya:

Papagimungonon mo/ Papagiyusonon mo/ Papagimukuon mo/ Papagilunggason mo Mosugawn gallo ng giuyuwall / L'ung naan, amangay nan sabitan. Mosugawn maguwall/ Amangay maynasang.

[xvii] Compare this with the Russian formalist Victor Shklovsky's defamiliarization. He says the language of literature attracts the reader's attention by making language "unfamiliar," that is, making it different from ordinary language. (Raman Selden. Practicing theory and reading literature, an introduction, The University Press of Kentucky, 1989, 41-45). My comment: Shklovsky's defamilization is a way of using language in a fresh way, but the objective is to make the presentation clearer, resulting in a familiar image or meaning.

[xviii] Literary critics studying African oral literature have also observed that today's African oral poets use "defamiliarizing poetic devices," meaning vocabulary and phrases different from everyday speech. Their analysis echoes the standard theory of defamiliarization. It is "to mark situations where a state of heightened artistic sensitivity and awareness is demanded from listener or reader." B.W. Andrzejewski, S. Pilaszewicxz, and W. Tyloch, eds. Literatures in African Languages, theoretical issues and sample surveys. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985, 21-22.

[xix] Rene Wellek ug Austin Warren. Theory of Literature, 3rd edition, Harvest Book, Harcourt Brace and Company, San Diego, New York, London. 1984, 84 . But I do not approve of Eliot's style of peppering his works with very obscure allusions and foreign phrases written in the original alphabet. He has his reasons, and I suppose some people enjoy literary puzzles.

[xx] Many Lumad myths talk of incest, while Lumad epics like the Tuwaang epic cycles, talk of war, friendship, heroism, honor, etc.

The current Marxist view is that "the canons of great literature are socially generated. The 'greatness' of Greek tragedy is not a universal and unchanging fact of existence, but a value which must be reproduced from generation to generation." Raman Selden. A reader's guide to contemporary literary theory. The University Press of Kentucky, 1985, 25.

[xxi] Cited as the most important contributions of the Americans are education and the health system. On the contrary I believe education is the most harmful legacy that the Americans gave us. The evil results of their education can be seen in our situation as a country today. As for the health system, they instituted it for the simple reason that the Americans who would administer the colony would not get sick.

[xxii] From Ulat ng Bayan survey of Pulse Asia conducted in August 2003 in which 22 percent of the adult population aged 18 and above who were asked said they would migrate if they had the chance. Felipe Miranda. eBalita Guest Editorial: leaving for good?

[xxiii] This is true especially in the United States. Wellek and Warren, 1984, 51. But in many former colonial countries, the teaching of the mother tongue and mother tongue literature remains a contentious issue because of the resistance of the educated elite.

[xxiv] The issue of national language should not be confused with the issue of using one's own language. In 1975, F.Sionil Jose raised this problem: "(T)o be true to ourselves, we would have to develop our own language (and) in promoting this national language, we will also give a genuine culture base for nationalism." In Shirly Geok-Lin Lim. Nationalism and literature, English-language writing from the Philippines and Singapore, New Day Publishers, 1993, 4.

My view is that we don't have to "develop our own language." Each of us already has our own language. All we need to do is use it. If you are a Bisaya, write in Bisaya, etc. On the issue of national language, there is no need to have one national language to be developed artificially or to be imported. We can have many national languages. There are many ethnokinship groups or nations in this country, and privileging one language over another will only create dissension and dissatisfaction. Respect for one's language should be the rule in our relationship with each other. It will create a better culture base for a sense of Filipinohood.

[xxv] This is a beautiful dream, to be read by the entire world. But how many will succeed? Other people in other countries have simply no time for us even if we write good English. But if you're very good, no matter in what language you write, sooner or later people all over the world will read you, and not necessarily in English.