Mark Jerome T.

Trangia AB Development Studies

155783
Storybook as a Vessel of Dumagat Culture

Culture is succinctly defined by Edward B. Taylor, as the complex concept entailing

beliefs, arts, moral, law, and habits (1964 cited in Pai and Adler, 1997) that becomes the avenue
for individuals to be aware of their distinct and context-specific moral and ethical dispositions,
allowing them to not only recollect but also realize their national knowledge and civic
responsibilities (2010 cited in Poralan and Babiera, 2014). Cultural knowledge also involves
indigenous practices which remains an important aspect of being Filipino. Nations are imparted
with a responsibility to understand their inherent connectedness that they may use it to cultivate
their diversity not only to advance their distinct qualities as a nation in the face of the global
sphere but also to serve humanity. Reinforcing cultural heritage is a key challenge that must be
addressed by all nations. If cultures were to vanish and fade, then nations will eventually lose
their identities, most especially their traditions and heritage. Indeed, while globalization
favorably shapes economies and technologies by forming a large sphere of multinational
organizations and multilateral institutions, where nations subscribed to this global sphere can
adopt strategies for economic and technological development, consequently making them
globally competitive (Zialcita, n.d.), it also compresses and flattens the world where the
transpiring processes and activities are standard (Robertson, 2000). Giddens describes
globalization as an “unstoppable machine that will radically transform alter, or even mangle all
the structures that are obstructing its way.” (2003 cited in Abulencia, 2015). Conserving heritage
entails the awareness of nations and its members, and true enough they cannot reinforce
something they are not aware of (Ocampo and Delgado, 2014). Awareness entails interpretation,
“through interpretation, understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through
appreciation, protection (1967 cited in van Buren, 1988); therefore, as a strategy, educating the
people is key to the fruition of this initiative.

Education, in this context, bears so much responsibility as proffered by Hatch “is the
prime arbiter of our future, not only guiding children into adulthood, but also defining for them,
through the school curriculum, what constitutes culture and what the individual’s role within it
should be.” (1998). More specifically, heritage education has a big responsibility to fill in
reshaping the current curriculum by advancing cultural concerns to the lives of the students. This
is in relation to the pressing concern of heritage being “at risk because it does not seem to relate
to most people’s private, everyday worlds. It appears detached from what really matters, is not
part of family, learning, or life.” (James, 1988). “Origin stories, earth, plants and fabric” (n.d.
cited in Nee-Benham 2008) are the basic foundations through cultural and indigenous knowledge
are formed. If these were to be successfully dispersed and transmitted to the youth, then
appreciation and awareness will be better cultivated.

The essential faculties of knowledge – learning, thinking, awareness and understanding –

are manifested and formed in educational institutions. The functions of the human mind are
known to be shaped by culture such that “learning and thinking always takes place in specific
cultural contexts and that individual expression is achieved through the creation of meaning,
through the attribution of meaning to things in different context and situations”, hence it can be
deduced that culture and education are inseparable (2000 cited in Ivon and Kuščević, 2012).
Culture as a facet of the society revolves around its manifestation in arts, literature, technology,
and even the environment. Teaching areas and techniques such as the practice of utilizing
concrete products that can be perceived by the senses in the form of images and illustrations,
performances and demonstrations, as well as words and phrases. Cultural heritage desires the
reinforcement of the students’ appreciation, connectedness, and understanding of the translations
of their historical and cultural experiences (Hunter, 1988). It hopes to instill these traits for the
purpose of stewardship towards their heritage and for a much higher purpose of understanding
the past and making substantial decisions for today and the future. What better way to do this is
by making the students aware through an approach known as heritage education, which gives
emphasis to history and culture harnessed from tangible and intangible heritage (Lambert, 1996).

Studies exploring the effectiveness of heritage education as a means of cultural

conservation and promotion has been conducted within the country. In Balayan and Nasugbu,
Batangas, the HEKASI (Heograpiya, Kasaysayan, and Sibika) Program of the Batangas Division
forwarded the implementation of “Kulturang Batangueño” where schools governed by this
divisions encourage students to do studies related to the history of their schools, barangay, and
municipality featuring the local culture of Batangas. However, the study also realized that the
extensive promotion of heritage education in schools is greatly outweighed by the budget issues
of the Philippine Education System (Ocampo and Delgado, 2014). Inclusion of cultural heritage
into the education of the Batangueño youth is not only dependent to the local DepEd officials,
school principals, and teachers but are also contingent to the stakeholders and key actors
involved in the implementation. This issue on budget is pressing for not only does it affect the
quality of teaching, but it also exacerbates the failure in the appreciation of culture and heritage.
Furthermore, this stresses that effective teaching cannot be achieved if the Philippine education
system remains flawed, therefore an extensive assessment of the said educational system is
highly needed.

The aspirations of heritage education to reinforce the rich heritage and traditions of
communities, coincide with that of the National Indigenous Peoples (IP) Education Policy
Framework or IPEd. The Department Order 62 (also known as Adopting the National Indigenous
Peoples (IP) Educational Framework) was signed by the DepEd secretary, Armin A. Luistro, in
2011 both as a contribution to the Work Indigenous People’s Day and a response to the growing
dissatisfaction of the indigenous peoples towards the Philippine Education System (Victor and
Yano, n.d.). According to DepEd Sec. Luistro, the IPEd framework emphasizes the creation of
an education system that is “inclusive to the learners belonging to the minority groups… and that
the country’s basic education should be the one to recognize and promote the rights and welfare
of indigenous people.”

Forwarding this very idea of transmitting culture via education, this paper hopes to
provide a thorough yet succinct analysis of the anthropology of a Dumagat Storybook as a vessel
of culture in the lens of Materiality. Children’s literature presents potential in becoming an
instrument in exploring and developing appreciation for cultural knowledge and differences
(1990 cited in Creany, et al., n.d.), and this can be in the form of a storybook in which both
illustration and words have equal responsibilities in telling a story that children could benefit
from. Apart from receiving enjoyment and fascination from multicultural storybooks, children,
most especially from ethnic groups, will be able to identify themselves with and develop pride
and self-esteem from the story, while non-ethnic group children can recognize commonalities
and learn from the cultures that is shared by all ethnic groups (1990 cited in Creany, et al., n.d.).
Storybooks are widely used in early education to aid the learning – recognition, absorption, and
retention – of children. Teaching children cultural heritage studies opens their eyes to the grand
and extensive world encompassed by their unique and distinct culture. Children, of course, are
not aware of this and what better means of opening their eyes to this world is through education
which can serve as a revelation to what history and culture has in store for their learning, more
importantly to what they can contribute to their community and nation.

Materiality as an approach expresses an assumption that materials or objects represent

people or groups of people (Miller, n.d.). The assumption that “there is a person behind every
object” is further enriched by the phenomena that subjects are created by the same act of
objectification that is responsible for creating products. More than this, materiality as an
approach serves as a representation, and this claim was strengthened by Dobres (2006) by stating
that “materiality is more than artifacts and their agency” and more than that materiality
encompasses culture. Several studies have been conducted in different parts of the world
showing the phenomena of materiality as an avenue for containing and transmitting culture. A
study by Meskell (2005) presented a deduction where materiality is demonstrated in the Egyptian
culture and belief of the afterlife and the function of monuments, tombs, and the Pyramid. Her
study documented the Egyptian culture itself where it is believed to be materialized and
immortalized in the monuments and the Pyramid themselves. Another study done by Pinney
(1992) featured Hindu monoliths as objects having mutual relationships with the subjects – the
Hindu worshippers. Miller’s (2010) study of blue jeans explored how blue jeans, a staple wear
for all ages, gender, and social class, became a dominating instrument and a global garment. He
explains how jeans are a form of material culture where the ideal of an ordinary individual
becomes objectified through the wearing of such clothing item, Jeans have become a means to
provide relaxation to an individual’s allegiance to situations and events due to the generality it
possesses. Lastly, a study by Larkin (2014) elucidated the role of loudspeakers during the time of
war in Nigeria. The sound loudspeakers produce has been identified to be uncontrollable by all
of its targets, these targets have resorted to comport themselves upon hearing the blaring sound.
Consequently, as a result of the repeated blasting of loudspeakers, Nigerians perceived
loudspeakers as a sound for fear, violence, disturbance and conflict.
 All these studies presenting the manifestation of objects being able to work and create a
person for their subjects can be likened to a storybook functioning as a vessel for the Dumagat
culture that can be responsible for transmitting the tradition and knowledge to its readers. The
storybook functions as a vessel by carrying specific Dumagat cultural traditions, practices, and
knowledge through its narrative and images. As the child reader goes through the pages of the
storybook, the series of words – or stories – welcome their cognition, not only for entertainment
but more importantly for learning. Stories function as an agent of persuasion, regardless of its
length, stories are sure to plant a seed in its readers thoughts as long as the correct language,
characters, actions, and thoughts are used and linked together. It is through stories that humans
are able to participate in their complex social life by “finding and following a thread of narrative
through a skein of events” (Carrithers, 2005). More than this cultural phenomenon proves
difficult to grasp most especially those that have complex context, and this is where stories
serves it function in weaving together thoughts for the purpose of “understanding the moral
significance of situations” (1969 cited in Carrithers, 2005). Stories, however, for it to be
understood must achieve a harmony between the interpreter and the interpreted. Davidson
explains that the interdependence of belief and meaning play an important role such that the base
meaning of a sentence depends partly on the external factors surrounding the reader, and partly
on the grammatical, logical and syntax foundations. Furthermore, he claims that, “your utterance
means what mine does if belief in its truth is systematically caused by the same events and
objects” (2001 cited in Palecek and Risjord, 2012), which means that having the same claims and
statements does not commensurate the same meanings. Beliefs need to be systematically
integrated not only into the daily life but also into the web of interactions of the readers in order
to abolish misconceptions and inconsistencies in understanding. This is where the choice of
language comes in. Becker and Dastile’s study of “Global and African: exploring hip-hop artists
in Philippi Township, Cape Town” explored the people, languages and lyrics of spaza hip-hop as
one of its sections. The African language, in particular, was recognized to be a catalyst for giving
rise to the concept of spaza hip-hop. It is through the African-language that the people are able to
achieve an understanding of their identity and be able to even represent a whole new
consciousness in the form of hip-hop (Becker and Dastile, 2015). The same phenomenon works
within the context of the storybook of the Dumagat. The storybook having been written by the
Dumagat youth themselves propagates a level of understanding shared within their community.
The story is written and woven with precision because of the lived experiences and daily
interactions of the Dumagat youth to their culture and community. As such, the story is better
appreciated due to the context-specificity of the writers allowing the Dumagat develop a sense of
sociocultural identity that not only reinforces their location and place as a community but also it
means that they are becoming more aware of their culture and are able to appreciate this in a
different avenue, which is through the storybook.

In this very sense, the Dumagat culture, written as stories with illustrations which is
contained in a storybook paves a way not only for the possibility of cultural transmission but also
as a living vessel that could be treasured throughout generations. The storybook propagates the
learning of culture not only within the Dumagat community but also to those who are interested
in the Filipino indigenous cultural communities. Readers undergo a process of enculturation as
they internalize (Kottak, 2011) with the contents of the storybook. Reiterating the claim of James
that heritage is “at risk because it does not seem to relate to most people’s private, everyday
worlds. It appears detached from what really matters, is not part of family, learning, or life.”
(1988) , it carries on with it the possibility of persuasion, as explained by Carrithers, brought
about by stories because through it the Dumagat can “find and follow a thread of narrative
through a skein of events” that they do not normally experience in their daily interactions.

The Dumagat storybook becomes the avenue for which the Dumagat can transmit not
only their practices and knowledge but also their identity. The storybook acts as a vessel that
people could access whenever they want to realize and learn what the Dumagat culture is all
about. An object like the storybook creates an identity, a subject, that the Dumagat can identify
with upon making an interaction with the book. It is where they can relive their habitus – one
that has been dominantly constructed, a place they have come to know (Packwood, 2010). A
remnant or a residue of their history (Crossley, 2001) that presents potential of functioning in
today’s time. Only now it is in the form of a vessel which opens an array of possibilities for the
Dumagat culture, not only for their realization of culture but also for propagating and forwarding
an educational system dedicated to teaching their culture. A heritage education system for the
Dumagat which makes cultural transmission possible for the current youth and for the
generations to come. There is so much hope for the prospering of heritage education that
researches have been conducted regarding its feasibility in certain locations in the Philippines.
However, much to that hope are the challenges. Challenges to budget, development, and research
that implementors are facing. The K-12 curriculum is known to be focused at making the youth
globally competitive by giving more emphasis to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics) subjects, and less to humanities and social sciences (Abulencia, 2015). This
forwarding of priorities is in conflict with what heritage wishes to accomplish. The Dumagat
youth have different needs, that although it is necessary for them to be educated of the society,
they have their own responsibility to know and realize what their culture is about. The Dumagat
youth must realize their rich roots and educational efforts to training them must be concentrated
first in one regime in the attempt to form one habit of mind (Mead, 1928). This may seem like a
very big endeavor to conquer, but with small steps like the promotion of a storybook that
encapsulates a portion of the Dumagat culture will work wonders. A small book that embodies a
large fabric of the Dumagat people that the Dumagat themselves can access anytime to relive
their “social legacy and the precipitates of their history” (1944 cited in Geertz, 1973) and for
them to be able to teach it their children. That even without the actual practice of execution of
the practices and display of knowledge, through the storybook as vessel of their culture of the
Dumagat is not only contained and immortalized but also made possible.
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