The Oral Histories- Besao's Stories Resounding Through Generations

Besao's Stories Resounding Through Generations

The Oral Histories

There is a quiet magic that happens when night falls over the mountains of Besao. As the cold mountain air settles into the valleys and the stars emerge above the rice terraces, young men gather inside the dap-ay, that rectangular stone and pinewood structure that has served as both dormitory and sacred meeting place for generations. Around the central fire, perhaps ten young gentlemen between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five sit close together, their faces illuminated by flickering flames, while older men begin to speak. The stories that flow from these elders are not mere entertainment. They are the living memory of a people, the accumulated wisdom of countless generations who have called these highlands home. In these moments, the dap-ay becomes far more than a physical structure. It transforms into the beating heart of a community where the past breathes into the present and the future is quietly shaped by the words of those who came before.

The tradition of gathering in the dap-ay represents one of the most enduring institutions of Kankanaey culture in Besao. These elders, respected for their wisdom and sense of justice, serve as the community's council, settling disputes and offering counsel on matters both practical and spiritual. But as the night deepens and the day's work is done, their role shifts from administrators to storytellers, from judges to guardians of memory. They speak of the origin of their barrios, of the time when the Ilobo people of what is now Besao were warring headhunters with the Iyabagatan of Tadian, and how two hunters meeting in the forest changed everything. One man climbed a bowen tree to escape his enemy, but when he finally came down, the other offered him food instead of death. This simple act of hospitality, governed by the sacred understanding that food shared with an enemy forbids killing, led to a peace agreement sealed by fires built on distant mountains. The place where these former enemies met midway became Catengan, meaning a resting place, and from this story the young men learn that even the deepest conflicts can be resolved through unexpected kindness and the courage to choose peace over vengeance.

The stories told in the dap-ay range from the cosmic to the deeply personal, from explanations of why the world is the way it is to cautionary tales about the dangers that lurk in everyday life. The elders speak of Lumawig, the Great Spirit who looked down from the sky and saw two sisters gathering beans, and how he descended to teach the people the ways of agriculture and community. They tell of how the world was once flat, when children playing hide and seek would wander so far that they and their searching parents would become hopelessly lost. The old men gathered and prayed to Kabunian, who stamped his mighty foot upon the earth and raised mountains of various sizes so that people would never lose their way again. In this simple tale lies a profound truth about the relationship between the people of Besao and their mountainous landscape. The mountains are not merely geological formations. They are divine gifts, created out of compassion for humanity, landmarks that both define and protect a people who have learned to read their slopes and valleys as others read street signs.

But the oral literature of Besao extends far beyond the dap-ay gatherings. During wakes, when the community keeps vigil over the departed, the baya-o rises through the night air, a recitation sung in musical notes that weaves together the life of the dead person with stories and myths that mirror their journey. The baya-o is not a simple eulogy. It is a deeply artistic form where the singer might recount the deceased's life directly, describing their character and deeds, or might instead choose a myth that symbolically reflects the life that has ended. A person who lived with great generosity might be honored through the story of Calindo, who shared her camotes with the disguised goddess Meg-ey and was rewarded with the first rice. Someone who overcame great hardship might be remembered through the tale of the two orphan brothers who helped the sun himself when all seemed lost. In this way, the baya-o does not merely mourn a death. It elevates a life into the realm of the mythic, connecting the individual to the eternal stories that have sustained the community for centuries. The living and the dead are bound together through melody and meaning, and those who keep vigil learn that every human life, however humble, resonates with the great themes of courage, kindness, and transformation.

During larger gatherings and celebrations, the uggayam fills the air with its melismatic music, its flowing notes carrying wisdom and history in ways that transcend ordinary speech. The uggayam is recited directly about the gathering itself, celebrating the occasion and the people present, or it might draw upon a popular myth that holds deep meaning for the gathering. At a wedding, the uggayam might weave the story of Lumawig descending to marry Fucan, teaching that divine blessing attends unions built on respect and generosity. At a harvest feast, it might recount how Meg-ey transformed the weed into pagey, reminding everyone that abundance flows from kindness to strangers. The melismatic quality of the uggayam, with its elaborate vocal ornamentation, is not merely decorative. It is essential to the form, carrying emotional weight and spiritual significance that plain speech cannot convey. The singer's voice rises and falls, stretches and contracts, each note a thread connecting the present celebration to the ancient stories that give it meaning. Those who listen are not passive audiences. They are participants in a communal act of remembrance, their presence and attention giving life to words that have been sung for generations.

The moral architecture of Besao's oral traditions is built upon the concept of inayan, a moral code that fosters harmony with nature, ancestors, and the unseen forces governed by Kabunian, the supreme deity. Every story reinforces this code in ways both subtle and direct. The tale of Bagsalay, the man struck by lightning while gathering firewoods, demonstrates the power of Lumawig and the necessity of proper respect for natural forces. When Bagsalay was split into pieces by lightning and then miraculously reassembled by a second bolt, he and his wife offered a caniao, a sacrificial feast, in gratitude. This story teaches that the forces of nature are not random or malevolent but respond to human acknowledgment and respect. Even today, when lightning strikes within a barrio's territory, the old men led by the village priest or mamakdo go to offer sacrifice at the spot, maintaining a living connection between ancient story and contemporary practice.

The story of how Payeo got its name offers another layer of moral instruction. During the headhunting days, when Payeo was still called Bagsinget, the people of Sagada planned an attack. They encountered a deaf man who, when asked what he was making, simply answered "Payeo," meaning ricefield. The warriors mistook this for the place's name and moved on, searching for Bagsinget elsewhere. The old men, recognizing that this misunderstanding had saved their community, changed the name permanently. Embedded in this tale is the understanding that sometimes salvation comes through unexpected means, that the vulnerable among us may unknowingly protect the whole, and that adaptability in the face of danger is a form of wisdom.

Perhaps most moving is the story of the two orphan brothers, Bogatan and Atombangi, who decided to end their lives by drowning because there was nobody to care for them. In the river they met Mr. Ageo, the sun himself, tangled in vines and weeds with thorns between his teeth and earthworms in his ears. Despite their despair, the boys helped him, and in return he directed them to his brother Bowan, the moon, who would care for them. This story speaks to the deepest fears of childhood, abandonment and hopelessness, and transforms them into a narrative about the hidden helpers that appear when all seems lost. It teaches that even in our darkest moments, when we have decided to give up entirely, we may encounter beings who need our help, and that by extending ourselves to others we often find our own salvation.

The flood story of Lumawig's sons carries equally profound lessons. When the two brothers flooded the earth to create mountains for better hunting, they inadvertently drowned all humanity except for one brother and sister sheltering in Pokis. Lumawig descended, built them a fire, and when the waters receded, instructed them to marry and repopulate the earth. From this narrative comes an understanding of catastrophe and renewal, of how well-intentioned actions can have devastating consequences, and of the responsibility to rebuild and continue even after near-total destruction. The brother and sister's initial hesitation about marrying, their sense that such a union would be wrong, speaks to an innate moral compass that even divine necessity must acknowledge and work with.

These stories were never written down in the way that modern literature is preserved. They existed only in the minds and voices of those who told them and the ears of those who listened. This oral transmission was not a weakness but a strength, for it meant that every telling was also an interpretation, every recitation a renewal. Stories could adapt to new circumstances while maintaining their essential truths, could speak to contemporary problems while honoring ancient wisdom. The elder telling the tale of Lumawig to young men in the dap-ay was doing exactly what his grandfather had done decades before, and what his great-grandfather had done before that, stretching back into a past where the boundary between history and myth was never firmly drawn. The baya-o singer at a wake was connecting the deceased to this same unbroken chain, using melody to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. The uggayam chanter at a celebration was reinforcing communal bonds through melismatic music that made the ancient stories feel immediate and urgent.

The question of why these stories were made and why they were passed down through generations has many answers, all of them true. They were made to explain a world that often defied explanation, to give meaning to the mountain mists and the terraced fields, the lightning storms and the phases of the moon. They were made to teach, to instill in the young the values of generosity, courage, respect for nature, and community solidarity. They were made to heal, to transform the pain of loss into the continuity of memory through the musical notes of the baya-o, to turn the fear of death into an understanding of ancestral presence. They were made to celebrate, to mark gatherings and feasts with the melismatic beauty of the uggayam, connecting every celebration to the mythic narratives that give communal joy its deepest meaning. They were made to entertain, certainly, to fill the long mountain nights with wonder and laughter and the pleasure of a well-told tale. But above all, they were made to bind a people together, to create what the Kankanaey call the ili, the village or community that is defined not by geography alone but by shared stories, shared values, and the mutual recognition that comes from knowing the same tales.

In the dap-ay, as the fire burns low and the young men's eyes grow heavy, the elder's voice might soften as he speaks of the old woman who appeared to a starving mother and daughter on a plateau between Sagada and Besao. She asked them to remove her lice, which turned out to be snakes and centipedes, and then fed them from a pot that was a human skull and a ladle made of bones. Because they showed no fear and spoke no complaint, she gave them gabi and palay that filled their granary and house to overflowing. But when their neighbors tried to replicate this good fortune, taking their daughters to seek the same blessing, they failed because they lacked the essential qualities of patience, courage, and acceptance. The story warns that blessings cannot be manipulated or demanded, that they come only to those who can face the strange and frightening with open hearts.

As modernity reaches even the most remote mountain villages, the tradition of oral storytelling faces challenges that no ancient tale could have predicted. Young people leave for schools in the lowlands, for work in distant cities, for lives that seem to offer more than the hard labor of terrace farming. The dap-ay, once a boys' dormitory where young males slept and learned until the 1960s, now sees fewer regular occupants. The very language in which these stories are told, Kankanaey, competes with English and Tagalog in formal education, leading to reduced proficiency among younger generations. The baya-o and uggayam, with their demanding musical forms and deep knowledge requirements, find fewer practitioners capable of carrying them forward. Yet there are signs of revival and recognition of what is at stake. Community-led language programs and documentation projects have compiled dictionaries, literature collections, and video productions. Teachers have begun to reflect on their role in promoting Westernized education and have worked to design instructional materials that incorporate indigenous knowledge. The Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997 provides a legal framework for this cultural preservation, recognizing that indigenous cultural integrity includes the right to maintain and develop oral traditions.

The stories of Besao remind us that human beings have always been storytellers, that we make sense of our world through narrative, and that the most enduring wisdom is often passed from grandparent to grandchild in the flickering light of a fire or the melismatic flow of a chant. They remind us that before there were books, there were voices, and that these voices carried entire civilizations across millennia. When an elder in Besao speaks of Lumawig descending from the sky to marry a mortal woman, or of the sun trapped in vines by the river, or of the first rice growing from a touched weed, he is not recounting fiction in the modern sense. He is transmitting truth, the kind of truth that can only be spoken and heard, the kind that changes slightly with each telling while remaining eternally the same. When a baya-o singer weaves a life into myth through musical notes, or an uggayam chanter makes the ancient stories sing at a celebration, they are doing something that no written text can fully capture. They are keeping the stories alive, making them breathe, ensuring that the accumulated wisdom of countless generations continues to guide, comfort, and inspire.

To sit in the dap-ay as the night deepens is to participate in one of humanity's oldest and most sacred activities. To keep vigil at a wake while the baya-o rises in musical tribute is to understand that death is not an ending but a transformation into story. To hear the uggayam at a gathering is to feel the melismatic notes connect every present moment to the deep past. The stories told in these spaces are not relics of a dead past but living things, as relevant to contemporary challenges as they were when first composed. They teach us that kindness to strangers may save our lives, that the natural world demands and deserves our respect, that community is built through shared narrative, and that even the greatest catastrophes can be survived through courage, faith, and the help of others. They teach us that we are never alone, that the ancestors walk beside us, that the mountains themselves are gifts of divine compassion, and that the stories we tell shape the people we become.

In the end, the oral histories of Besao are not just about preserving the past. They are about creating the future, one story at a time, one generation at a time, around fires that have burned for centuries and will continue to burn as long as there are voices to speak and ears to listen. The young men who gather in the dap-ay today carry within them the same potential for wisdom and courage as those who gathered there a hundred years ago or a thousand. The baya-o singers who honor the dead with musical recitation today are heirs to a tradition that has transformed countless individual lives into eternal myth. The uggayam chanters who make the ancient stories sing at celebrations today are keeping alive a melismatic art form that connects every feast to the deepest wells of communal meaning. And when they become elders themselves, they will tell the same stories, sing the same songs, chant the same melodies, with the same hope, to new generations who will need them just as much as we do. This is the true meaning of preservation, not the freezing of culture in time but the continuous renewal of meaning through the ancient and ever-new act of telling stories, of singing lives into eternity, of making the mythic present in every note and every word.

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