The Ulahingan: Turning Grief into Courage
By Mila D. Aguilar
March 20, 2001
Summary of the Epic
The Ulahingan is divided into two main parts: the kepu’un-pu’un and the sengedurug.
The kepu’un-pu’un comprises “the beginning,” (Maquiso 1:1) or the origins of Nelendangan; it is
likened to the roots of a clump of bamboos. The sengedurug is an individual bamboo, meaning
that it is a portion of the whole epic, but is in itself complete. There are four recorded and
published versions of the kepu’un-pu’un, five including the later Langkat story. Of the 1,647
known sengedurug, only five have been published so far by Elena Maquiso. Twenty-five years
after the research started, five creation myths, supposedly parts of the kepu’un-pu’un, cropped up,
and were included in fourth and fifth series of the published Ulahingan.
The four main versions of the kepu’un-pu’un not including the added creation myths are:
the Saliling version, the Mampinda’upan version, the Bangcas version, and the Manggung
version. The names belong to the tala’ulahingans who related their versions of the kepu’un-pu’un
in prose.
Two brothers led a group of people who lived in a place called Banobo. [These people,
apparently, came from an area today called Indonesia, sired by a datu who left it due to an
altercation with other datus there (Maquiso’s footnote, 1:60).] The two brothers were
Tabunaway, the elder and therefore the timu’ay or chief, and Mamalu. When Sarip
Kabungsuwan and Rajah Baginda arrived from the west to spread Islam, Tabunaway refused to
accept the new religion, but instructed his brother to do so. However, he was not to convert
anybody to it, because, he said, “If there anyone who will come whose doctrine I like, we will
follow that.” This, he added, was their covenant which is true for all generations to come.”
(Maquiso 1:61)
Tabunaway removed to the mountains of Simu’ay with that part of his people who did
not want Islam, but after every harvest would go down to Banobo to give Mamalu threshed rice,
wild honey and resin. When he grew old, his brother asked him to live in Banobo, which he did,
but without most of his people.
When, in the next generations, the sultanate of Maguindanao was established by the
grandchildren of Mamalu, the followers of Tabunaway were forced to pay tribute – the same
“tribute” that Tabunaway had paid to his younger brother as a demonstration of his love. This
tribute had to be delivered to the sultan before anyone could eat his harvest. Some generations
after, Pemulew and his brothers Agyu, Lená and Vanlak decided that they would pay tribute to
the sultan for the last time.
As it turned out, the decision was negotiable. Pemulew and his people did not give
anything to the sultan in the next harvest, but when summoned to explain, Pemulew replied that
the harvest was poor. When the sultan, in anger, raised their tribute to three times the previous
one, Pemulew and his people decided to pay the tribute in seven days, which, however, still
turned out to be insufficient. This angered the sultan even more, but upon Pemulew’s entreaty
that they would pay the balance in the next harvest in addition to the yearly tribute, the sultan
relented.
An irate nephew of Pemulew, Kuyasú by name, however, insisted on going back to the
palace to confront the sultan. After a heated exchange, he ends up driving his spear into the
sultan’s abdomen and escaping with the same spear through the window.
Pemulew and his people are overtaken by the followers of the sultan, bound, jailed and
tortured. One after another, the brothers dream of the same beautiful woman, who finally reveals
herself to Pemulew because he is the most humble of them all, and tells him that his people will
find themselves unbound, and must immediately flee to the mountains “in an orderly fashion.”
(Maquiso 1:67)
So they do. But in Kituved, Mungan, Vanlak’s wife, asks them to leave her, for, having
contracted leprosy, she has become a burden to them. Agyu builds a small hut for her, hollowing
out a log, which she would beat day and night to indicate that she is alive and well.
They proceed to the east until they reach Aruman, gaining “supernatural strength and
endurance in the midst of hunger, thirst and other difficulties.” (Maquiso 1:68) Agyu assumes
leadership of the group, for Pemulew has grown old.
The brothers continue to visit Mungan, bringing her food, even as the settle down in
Pinamatunan for several harvest seasons. Then a miracle happens: in his last visit, Agyu finds
that Mungan is no longer a cripple. He is instructed by her not to tell anyone.
In Pinamatunan, Pemulew is instructed by the same woman who appeared to them the
first time to transport the people to Aruman. From Aruman, Agyu visits Mungan in Kituved, and
finds, in place of her hut, a golden palace on top of which was a rainbow, with seven meresen
etews descending upon it. Mungan tells him to take his brothers and sisters there, leaving the
people behind for the meantime.
The trip turns out to be a meeting with the meresen etews, who have been instructed by
the katulusan who are in charge of the portals of heaven to give them the betel nut of semi-
immortality. All taste of it except Mungan, who prefers to become an adtulusan, staying in her
palace to serve “as a channel to the younger generation of rana’anen to become adtulusan in due
course of time.” (Maquiso 1:72) After the betel nut, they receive the pinipi of semi-immortality
from mayas who alight on the winnowing basket Pemulew was instructed to set on the porch.
The next step in their trip to heaven is to face different kinds of adversaries. They have to
overcome Makeyvakey and “the smaller but fiercer giant, Kumaka’an.” They have to kill the
giant boar Makaranding, who has a dagger for a tusk, and can therefore cut their stomachs open,
removing all their internal organs. However, according to the meresen etews, after their
intestines have been removed, the Midlimbag with all the katulusan will replace their intestines
with golden chains, and heal all their wounds.
As commanded by the meresen etews, they butcher the boar and apportion the meat to
everyone. They do, in fact three times, but there is always one share too many. Finally, Agyu
recalls his son Bayvayan, who has been out hunting. He calls out to him, and the son appears
smiling from the bushes. This, says Agyu, is an indication that Bayvayan will not go with them to
heaven, but has to go around the world to gather followers and convert them. His share of the
meat will be preserved for his followers.
So Agyu takes Bayvayan’s share and throws it away, and it becomes a live pig upon
touching the ground. That pig would become one of Bayvayan’s adversaries in his own time, so
Lená builds a stone enclosure around it and Bayvayan departs.
Each of the people’s share of the meat is cooked in a big pot, and each becomes bigger as
it is cooked, more than enough for every individual, with no left-over. The people would not get
hungry for seven days. On the seventh day, they were supposed to eat just a little from whatever
they had. However, Agyu and his brothers would not have to eat anymore, because they already
had for chewing the betel nut of semi-immortality.
The same thing happens to the balanak fish Mungan catches with one arm for them once
they arrive at her place. Once more, to Bayvayan belongs the leftover, which becomes a live
balanak in a pool for his later delectation.
Mungan tells them to proceed to Aruman, where they are to be taken up to heaven in a
sarimbar. So Agyu calls his cousin Tulalang to ask him if they would go with him. Tulalang,
when he arrives, takes a grain of rice, places it on a hearth without fire, and covers it with one
half of a coconut shell. When he takes off the cover, the rice is already grown and ripened. Agyu
does the same, and his rice also grows and ripens. But when the grain of each is opened, it turns
out that Tulalang’s has red stripes, indicating that he was favored by the diwata of war, while
Agyu’s is white, indicating that he was favored by the diwata of peace. Agyu therefore
concluded that Tulalang’s path was different from his own, and so Tulalang went home.
Agyu and his people reach the sixth level of heaven through the sarimbar, which is pulled
by a chain. They have become fully immortal. There, the highest katulusan tells them that they
now have free access to the Midlimbag, and are mightier than the imbayabay, the inggaib and the
next generations of rana’anen. They are also told that they will not dwell in that heaven, but will
go to Nelendangan, a paradise prepared by the Midlimbag for them. This is to be their reward
since, as the Midlimbag tells them, “You overcame your earthly difficulties with patience and
perseverance without cursing your Midlimbag.”
So Agyu and his people reach Nelendangan, where they build their settlement.
The epilogue of Bayvayan follows. When Bayvayan leaves his father in Kituved, his
grandfather Lagaba’an commands him to perform the sa’ut, or war dance. Bayvayan circles
seven times, then falls, dead tired. Lagaba’an therefore declares that Bayvayan has to go around
the world seven times before reaching his own paradise.
Bayvayan’s course is not as clean as Agyu’s. Malingling, his contemporary, curses
(baliew) people to lessen the number of his followers, until Bayvayan finally meets him in
Bukidnon. Bayvayan throws his ring into the Pulangi River where it becomes a big lobster. He
bids Malingling to catch the lobster so that he could baliew Bayvayan’s followers. Malingling
falls into the falls in the effort, thus ending his work of cursing.
Thereafter, Bayvayan uncovers the boar at Bavuy, and the balanak at Kituved. But in
both places, a number of his followers fall short of faith. When the sarimbar comes, several other
people are left behind for one reason or another. At the first level of heaven, Kukukay demands a
maiden as he did with Agyu, but the maiden Bayvayan constructs out of the organ of one has to
bones, and therefore could not stand, so Kukukay demands that she be changed. Bayvayan
protests. Since the best was not given, Kukukay breaks the chain of the sarimbar and it falls; then
he seals the portal with a rock and plants bamboos there, making it impossible from thereon for
other generations to reach heaven.
The Midlimbag welcomes Bayvayan and his followers to a separate Nelendangan but
declares that their powers will be limited, for they will serve merely as allies of Agyu, inspiring
the rana’anen to chant the Ulahingan. They reach their Nelendangan by walking. (Maquiso 1:60-
86)
About the Author...
Mila D. Aguilar
Mila D. Aguilar (born 1949) is a Filipina poet and revolutionary, author of A Comrade is as Precious as a Rice Seedling and Journey: An Autobiography in Verse (1964-1995). She is also an essayist, teacher, video documentarist, and website designer.
As a poet, she has written almost 240 poems in English, Filipino, and Ilonggo. About 125 of these are in her collection of poems, Journey: An Autobiography in Verse (1964-1995), published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1996. This collection contains poems from six books printed in Manila, San Francisco, and New York between the years 1974 and 1987 (including A Comrade is as Precious as a Rice Seedling), as well as poems written in subsequent years up to 1995.
In 1972, Aguilar was arrested by the Philippine government; following her release she was again arrested in 1984.
Ms. Aguilar has written more than a hundred essays, a handful of which were done when she went "underground"– first as an ordinary member, then later as head of the Regional United Front Commission ofMindanao, and last as head of the National United Front Commission of the Communist Party of the Philippines, from which she resigned in 1984.
She has produced, written, and directed almost 50 videos on subjects ranging from community organizations to regional cultures and good manners for government employees.
As a "webweaver", a term she invented,[citation needed] she has designed her own web pages as well as the website of a non-governmental organization.
At present she is teaching at the Department of English and Comparative Literature of the University of the Philippines, Diliman.
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