MYTHS and legends are meant to bestow sanctity on the origin
of things, places, nations and peoples, and give societies, big or small, a
shared sense of greatness and a source of collective pride. Indigenous peoples
are no exception to humankind’s yearning to discover or rediscover lost links
to the past through myths and legends of the struggles and triumphs of their
race.
BEFORE THE MEMORIES FADE
After the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro countries, including the Philippines, rushed efforts to implement programs that aim to conserve biodiversity and mitigate environmental destruction. Many of these programs rode on the crest of getting community participation as a way of ensuring that local peoples would not be displaced in favor of perpetuating flora and fauna. In a way, the era of conservation as an exclusive domain of biologists and other scientists had become a thing of the past; collaboration became the new byword.
Incidentally, a large numbers of indigenous peoples, whose cultures are as diverse as the mosaic of organisms around them, inhabit regions where conservation programs have been implemented ─ national parks and protected areas.
This is why challenges and conflicts did arise in relation to the assertion by indigenous peoples of culture as a right that determines their existence and defines their identity.
In Mount Kitanglad Range the conflicts stemmed from the failure of the state to recognize the ancestral domain rights, which made some tribal groups resort to confrontation in advocating their cause.
Others, like the Bukidnon tribe whose members live in the peripheries of the mountain range, along the western fringes of Malaybalay City, Bukidnon’s capital, have opted to push through with their ancestral domain rights in less than militant ways, armed only with determination, patience, and humility.
As the keepers of the ancient wisdom, they rely on the guidance of the spirits in the task of retelling the relations between humanity and nature, of reminding people that they are but existing on borrowed time.
It is in this context that this works attempts to chronicle the daily life of the Bukidnon tribe. It tries to give space to their muted voices and unspoken visions of the future, to enable them to articulate their thoughts and struggles, before their stories are consigned into an abyss beyond the reach of fading memories, to be buried beneath the unending flow of the sands of eternity.
