The Sulod (Panay Bukidnon) Myth of Creation

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The Panay Bukidnon, or Pan-ayanon, are a culturally indigenous Visayan group of people who reside in the Capiz-Lambunao mountainous area and the Antique-Iloilo mountain area of Panay in the Visayan islands of the Philippines. These people were termed Sulod or Suludnon by F. Landa Jocano during his research in the 1950’s. They are one of the two only culturally indigenous group of Visayan language-speakers in the Western Visayas, along with the, Halawodnon of Lambunao and Calinog, Iloilo and Iraynon-Bukidnon of Antique. Also, they are part of the wider Visayan ethnolinguistic group, who constitute the largest Filipino ethnolinguistic group.

The Panay-Bukidnon are united by a common historical tradition.  They all believe that they came from the same ancestors and this belief reinforces the powerful kinship ties that link all their settlements with one another.

The Sulod (Panay-Bukidnon) Myth of Creation

According to the Sulod myth, a long time ago there was no land. There were only the sky and wide expanse of water called linaw.

Then one day there appeared two people—Laki and Bayi. These people were of extraordinary size. Just where they came from was not known. One day Bayi (female) caught an earthworm called lagu-lagu. Out of curiosity, she held it on her palm and as she did this the creature threw out its excreta. The excreta grew and grew until it became the earth.

When the earth became big, Laki and Bayi went down to live on it. The married each other. When Bayi became pregnant, Laki prepared for her an amakan (a mat of thin bamboo splints) on which to lie down during her delivery.

Bayi gave birth to many children. The first set of her children came out of her finger-tips. These were the wild pigs, the deer and other game animals now roaming the mountain sides. These animals are still wild today because their ancestors ran away immediately after birth without waiting to be given names by their parents.

The second set of children came out of the tips of Bayi’s toes. These were marine creatures like the eel, the Balanak (a type of freshwater fish), all creatures living in the river and streams. Following the fish and eels were the domestic animals such as the dogs, the cats, and the chickens. They came out of the calves of Bayi’s legs. Out of her thighs came the wild birds—the crows, the ribariba and many others. Again these creatures were wild because they did not wait to be named but flew away immediately after birth. The last set of children who came out of Bayi’s genitalia consisted of three handsome boys—Hukum, Hikap and Sit.

These boys grew to be sturdy young men. To find out who among them was well behaved and good, Laki devised a way of testing them. One hot noon, after lunch, he lay down on the floor and purposely let out his scrotum from his clout. Then he went to sleep. When Hukum came up into the house when they returned from their hunt, he saw his father’s scrotum and he burst into laughter. Suddenly he turned black as though he had been burnt.

Following him was Hikap, the second son. Upon seeing their father’s genitals he smiled in amusement and he turned slightly brown. The last one to come up was Sit, who, upon seeing their father’s position, stepped forward and covered the exposed genitals. He remained maputi (fair-skinned).

When Laki woke up, he called his three sons to his side. He asked them what each would choose from three kinds of gifts he would like to give each of them: a golden chair, a beautifully carved bolo, and a pedang (headwear adorned with silver coins). Hukum chose the golden chair, Hikap the beautifully carved bolo, and Sit took what his brothers left, the headwear.

Next, Laki went beside the window. Looking out, he pointed to what he described as a “golden fish swept by the water out of the shore.” On hearing this, Hukum jumped out of his seat to take a look. He was followed by Hikap who changed his mind before he reached the window, and returned to his seat. Sit rose but did not go beside the window, instead he sat on Hukum’s golden chair. Turning to his three sons, after a while, Laki said:

“You, Hukum, because your conduct has been unbecoming and you have been very greedy, you’ll only die but never become rich. You will have to live by begging from your brothers and by hunting with bow and arrow. You, Hikap, you won’t earn a living until you make use of that bolo and till the soil. But you, Sit, because of your exemplary conduct, you will find living easy. Even if you don’t work, you’ll become rich.”

When these three young men came of marriageable age, they separated. Hukum became the father of the ati (Negritos), whose children still roam the mountainside begging for food and hunting with bow and arow; Sit went far, far away and was not heard of until his children returned (possibly meant to represent mainland traders, the Spaniards, and the Americans); and Hikap went mountainward and became the father of the Sulod people.

 

*Note:  Upon reading this, one might feel it contains very racist content.  It certainly feeds the narrative of colorism that plagues many modern social contexts. This myth paints the picture that the Ati (black skinned) are poor and beg for food as a punishment.  When pre-Spanish settlers came to Panay (possibly from Borneo and elsewhere), they displaced the Ati already living there.  They took over all of the prosperous areas for fishing, agriculture, and other resources , leaving the Ati people in more challenging circumstances.  This continued through Spanish colonization, but is not entirely a result of post-colonial socio-economic disparities.  However, colonization and the governments that followed significantly contributed to what we see in modern times. Watching what has happened to the Ati people of Boracay over the last 25 years has been heartbreaking.

Further, the third son in the myth, Sit, who was said to have displayed “exemplary behavior” remained fair skinned and was given an easy life. Again, this feeds into the narrative of colorism, in which colonization certainly contributed in exaggerated things for the benefit of the Spanish and Mestizo.  We should, however, also consider the Binukot practice of Panay – where young girls were cloistered, doted over and kept from the sun in order to keep their skin fair and soft.   In most early Philippine societies, fair skin was seen as a sign of beauty and wealth.  This is largely due to the social status of having slaves to do your labor and not having a need to toil under the sun. Even at first contact in 1521, Pigafetta (Magellan’s chronicler) noted that Queen Hara Humamay of Cebu wore a large parasol-like hat, which undoubtedly shielded her from the sun.

Creator deities, heroes, and diwatas are often portrayed as fair skinned within indigenous folklore and myth. The same phenomenon may be seen in Asian countries which were never colonized – China, Japan, Thailand.  Given that I am a foreigner to the Philippines, some of my critics may feel this note is a distraction from the larger issue of colorism that plagues the Philippines.  It is not meant as that.  If anything, I make this note to spotlight that these issues existed before colonization and were grossly exacerbated by the Spanish policy makers in the post-colonial archipelago.

SOURCE:  Felipe Landa Jocano, “Some Aspects of Filipino Vernacular Literature,” Brown Heritage
(Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1967), pp. 292-93.