Like Lola Basyang relating folklore to
children, we imagine a campfire, around it our ancestors exchanged knowledge
and recounted experiences, with spices of imagination and superstition. It was
a prototype open university. Throughout the ages and countless generations a
wealth of native knowledge and folk wisdom accumulated but not much of it has
survived.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday
Statue of Lola Basyang, the greatest Filipino storyteller for children ranks among the world's famous storytellers like the Grimm Brothers, Scheherazade, Hans Anderson, Aesop and Homer. Severino Reyes, also known as Don Binoy, adopted the persona of a woman we know as Lola Basyang, an elderly woman fond of telling stories to her grandchildren.The statue is in Bagac, Bataan.
Myths and legends are
most popular on the grassroots, enjoyed by both young and old, with the latter usually
taking the role of a narrator of “once upon and time” and “in the land of
fairies and giants” stories. And not
enough they fill the imagination, proceed to tell hair-raising stories in the world
of monsters and spirits. A dog howls, a bat swoops down in high pitch notes,
the audience huddles closer…
Imagine
Lola Basyang seated in an armchair beside a flickering hearth, children of all
ages (and adults, too), begging for more stories – stories so powerful the bond
of generations becomes closer and stronger. In make-believe stories the
imagination is more powerful than reason, which paves to a realm of mystery and
fantasy.
Mark Twain, in real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote children's adventure, the most popular is Huckleberry Finn. It has a sequel Tom Sawyer. He is shown here in academic gown after receiving the degree of Doctor of Literature (Lt.D)
Homer’s epics, the Iliad and
the Odyssey, were carried by oral tradition of storytelling, so
with Aesop’s fables, surviving many centuries and finding immortality in
books and media today. And would we look farther than the timelessness of
Christ lessons in parables? The Sermon on the Mount, The Prodigal Son,
the Sower, The Good Samaritan.
The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together collected and published folklore.
These and many more, continue to live in the home, school, and pulpit as they persisted in the catacombs in the beginnings of Christianity. Because Homer, Aesop, Christ and other early authors did not write, it is through oral history, in spite of its limitations and informal nature that these masterpieces were preserved and transcended to us - thanks to our ancestors, and to tradition itself.
On the lighter side, who of us don’t know Lam-ang, our own epic hero, the counterpart of England’s Beowulf? Juan Tamad, the counterpart of Rip Van Winkle? Who would not identify himself with Achilles or Venus? Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, Lapu-Lapu, Angalo – how could boys be more happy and become real men without these and other legendary characters? And we ask the same to girls becoming women without Cinderella and Maria Makiling? On my part, like other boys in my time, boyhood could not have been spent in any better way without the science fictions of Jules Vernes – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Eighty Days Around the World – and the adventures of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It is the universality of human thoughts and values that is the key to the timelessness of tradition – indeed the classical test of true masterpieces.
Imagine
Lola Basyang seated in an armchair beside a flickering hearth, children of all
ages (and adults, too), begging for more stories – stories so powerful the bond
of generations becomes closer and stronger. In make-believe stories the
imagination is more powerful than reason, which paves to a realm of mystery and
fantasy.
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are the world most popular epics. From the time of the Greeks to this day, they were passed on from generation to generation through oral tradition.
Myths
and legends open the gate to freedom from realities of life, seeking relief in
another world, and when we return, we are transformed and humbled, we are
stronger in our resolve and task.
Legends make us giants, and myths give us wings.
We imagine our ancestors huddled around a campfire
exchanging knowledge and recounting experiences, with spices of imagination and
superstition. It was a prototype open
university.
Throughout the ages and countless generations
a wealth of native knowledge and folk wisdom accumulated but not much of it has
survived.
Homer’s epics, the Iliad and
the Odyssey, were carried by oral tradition of storytelling, so
with Aesop’s fables, surviving many centuries and finding immortality in
books and media today. And would we look farther than the timelessness of
Christ lessons in parables? The Sermon on the Mount, The Prodigal Son,
the Sower, The Good Samaritan. The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together collected and published folklore.
These and many more, continue to live in the home, school, and pulpit as they persisted in the catacombs in the beginnings of Christianity. Because Homer, Aesop, Christ and other early authors did not write, it is through oral history, in spite of its limitations and informal nature that these masterpieces were preserved and transcended to us - thanks to our ancestors, and to tradition itself.
Just as the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans – and
even the remote and lesser ancient civilizations like the Aztecs and the Mayas
had their own cultural heritage, so have we in our humble ways. Panday
Pira attests to early warfare technology, the Code of
Kalantiao, an early codification of law and order, the Herbolario,
who to the present is looked upon with authority as the village doctor. And of course, we should not fail to mention
the greatest manifestation of our architectural genius and grandiose aesthetic
sense – the Banawe Rice Terraces, which through centuries spawned legends,
folklores and myths unique in the culture of the place..
Jules Verne, world's greatest science fiction writer. Author of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Eighty Days Around the World, among other works.
Jules Verne, world's greatest science fiction writer. Author of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Eighty Days Around the World, among other works. On the lighter side, who of us don’t know Lam-ang, our own epic hero, the counterpart of England’s Beowulf? Juan Tamad, the counterpart of Rip Van Winkle? Who would not identify himself with Achilles or Venus? Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, Lapu-Lapu, Angalo – how could boys be more happy and become real men without these and other legendary characters? And we ask the same to girls becoming women without Cinderella and Maria Makiling? On my part, like other boys in my time, boyhood could not have been spent in any better way without the science fictions of Jules Vernes – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Eighty Days Around the World – and the adventures of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It is the universality of human thoughts and values that is the key to the timelessness of tradition – indeed the classical test of true masterpieces.
Aesop was an Ancient Greek fabulist or story teller credited with a
number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables.
And would we say the least about children
stories? We can only wonder with awe at the determination of the Grimm Brothers
going to the villages of Europe soon after the Dark Ages began to end, and the
light of learning began to dawn again, the two scholars retrieving the
fragments and remnants of stories surviving the darkest period of history of
mankind. And what do we know? These stories, together with the stories from
the 1001 Arabian Nights, have kept the flame of human hope and joy
alive in cradles, around the hearth, on the bedside – even as the world was
uncertain and unkind.
We ask ourselves, if it is only truth that
can withstand the test of time. Or if it is only events that really happened
constitute history. And if there were any tinge that these stories were based
on the culture of a people in their own time, would we not find them, we who
live on the other side of the globe and in another time, find them strange?
Rediscovering indigenous knowledge and folk
wisdom enlarges and enhances our history and tradition and contribute immensely
to the quaintness of living. It is to the old folks that we owe much gratitude
and respect because they are our living link with the past. They are the Homer
of Iliad and the Odyssey of our times, so to speak. They are the Disciples of
Christ’s parables, the Fabulists of Aesop. They are the likes of the natural
healers of Fuga Island, a certain Ilocano farmer by the name of Juan Magana who
recited Biag ni Lam-ang from memory, Mang Vicente Cruz,
an herbolario of Bolinao, Pangasinan, whom I interviewed about
the effectiveness of herbal medicine. It is to people who, in spite of genetic
engineering, would still prefer the taste of native chicken and upland rice
varieties, old folks incanting “baribari” as they walk through the thickets to
appease the unseen.
Severino "Lola Basyang" Reyes
Greatest Filipino Children's Story Teller
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