The Divided Child

Bugan was the only child of the god Hinumbian and his wife Dakaue. They
lived in Luktan, the highest level of the Sky world. Bugan’s parents wanted her to
get married, but she was’nt interested in any of the available bachelors in Luktan.
So her parents sent her down to the lowest sky region, but there was no one
there she wanted to marry, either. Then they sent her down to the lowest sky
region, Kabunian, which is the level just above the Earth, and tried to set her up
with Bagilat, the god of lightning.
Nothing doing, said Bugan.
“That Bagilat, he’s always running all over the sky world, from the North to the
South, from the East to the West, sending lightning bolts down to Earth and
destroying the plants and the trees. Why would I want to marry him?’
“In that case,” said Bagilat’s father, “maybe you should just go back home, to
Luktan.”
But Bugan didn’t want to go home. Instead she went down to Earth, to a
place called Pangagauan, where she saw a young Ifugao man named Kinggauan,
digging pits to deer and other game in. He was a poor man, so poor that he’d
worn out his only clouth (loincloth) and had to go about naked. He must have
been handsome, too, because when Bugan saw him, she was filled with pity and
decided that she wanted to marry him.
She went home to ask permission from her parents, which they gave, and
so she went down to Earth with a pot of cooked rice, and a brand new clout
(bahag). But when she approached Kinggauan’s hut, he was too embarrassed to
come meet her, because he was naked.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. “I have a clout for you.” And she tossed the
clout into the open doorway. He put it on, but he still didn’t want to let her in.
“It’s bad luck to meet a woman when one is hunting,” he said.
“Don’t worry, “she said. “ You’ll have good luck. Let’s eat the rice that I brought,
and spend the night in your hut, and tomorrow we’ll go out and see how lucky
you are in the hunt.”
And that was that. The next day, the two went out the game pits, and
discovered that they were full. Kinggauan spent the rest of the day slaughtering
the game (except two little piglets, a male and a female, which he gave to Bugan)
and hauling the meat back to the hunt.
On the following day, Bugan asked Kinggauan why he lived such a tiny hut,
in such a remote place. Kinggauan told her that his parents were miserly, and
wouldn’t help to support him.
“We’ll see,“ said Bugan. “Let’s go back to Kiangan (the olet town in the
province of Ifugao).” And so they did. They went to the house where Kinggauan’s
parents lived and sat themselves down, much to his parent’s surprise.
“Who is this woman?” asked Kinggauan’s mother. Bugan explained who she
was, and that she had seen Kinggauan when looking down on Earth from the Sky
World, and out of pity came down to visit him and bring him game. Kinggauan’s
parents didn’t fully believe her, but Bugan sent them to their son’s hut, where
they saw the abundance of meat that Kinggauan had recovered from his pits.
After that, there wasn’t much that his parents could say.
And so Kinggauan and Bugan lived as man and wife, in Kiangan. Eventually,
Bugan gave birth to a healthy son, the couple named him Balituk. The two little
piglets grew up, and bred, and soon the couple had a large herd. Kinggauan’s luck
with the hunt continued, and the family were happy and prosperous.
But their prosperity made the other townspeople jealous, and they disliked
this strange woman, with her strange habits. Sky people don’t eat like Earth
people do, Bugan ate only rice, fowl, and flesh. She wouldn’t touch fish or
vegetables. So the townspeople, to drive her awat, began to surround the family’s
house with fish, and vegetables, and garden crops. The smell of the food made
Bugan ill, with a fever and a rash. And so she moved out of the family house, to
another hut. But the townspeople continued to harass her, surrounding her new
home with all the foods that they knew would make her sick.
 Finally, Bugan got tired of this, and decided to go home, to the Sky World.
She wanted to take her family with her, and she tried to carry Kinggauan up to the
sky in a hammock, but he was too frightened to go up with her. What to do? He
couldn’t go up to the Sky World and she couldn’t stay on Earth.
So Bugan took a knife, and cut their son in two, just above the waist. She
gave the top half to her husband – because the top half would be easier to bring
back to life - and kept the bottom half for herself. The entrails and organs she
divided evenly between the two halves of the body. Then Bugan went up to the
Sky World and made her half of Balituk whole again, and brought him back to life.
And of course, poor Kinggauan didn’’t know how to reanimate his half of
his son. The corpse rotted, and eventually, the stench made it up to the Sky
World, and to Bugan.
Crying with grief, Bugan came back down to Earth. She took her son’s head,
and turned it into an owl. She threw the ears into the forest, where they become
tree fungi. She turned the nose into another type of three fungus, one that looks
shells. From the entrails she made the bill of the ido bird (a sparrow – like bird
with a long tail).
The tongue had begun to rot, so from it she made an illness that causes
people’s tongues swell. From the ribs she made poisonous snakes. From the heart
she made the rainbow, and from the hair, maggots. From the intestines she
created rodents (possibly squirrels), and from the bones of the arms she made
rotten branches that fall from trees upon passer – by.
And then Bugan went back to the sky.

Researched by: Alaiza Kate Baloc

 How Lagawe Got It’s Name

Long, long ago, there was a hunter from Kay-ang by the name of Wigan.
Wigan, according to the “baki” chant, had roamed almost all the high mountains
with his dogs chasing wild games far and wide. To increase his hunt, Wigan placed
his “bango” in the river’s narrowest outlet from a valley across Kay-ang. The
bango was placed nicely and fittingly between two opposite high cliffs blocking
the water from flowing and forming a lake.
When Wigan decided to move to Kiyangan, he went to the river and
removed his bango. All the water that flooded the valley delineated the land and
the river and the appearance of the valley-land bare of vegetation was called
“Nagawi”.
Since then, the place had been called “Nagawi” until the Spaniards came
and re-wrote and spelled it “Lagawi”. The spelling was again changed at the latter
part of the Spanish Regime and the early American Rule by the native’s replacing
“I” with “e”. since then, the place was called “Lagawe”, with the “we” sounding
“weh”.

Researched by: Alaiza Kate Baloc