An Altered Native goes to the Storyfield Conference
At the end of this month, I will be going to the Storyfield Conference. A month ago, I did know not there was such an amazing opportunity for storytellers, artists, and explorers to gather. Puanani Burgess, a revered friend, mentor/storyteller and community builder, made it possible, when she herself and her son were not able to go.
I am deeply honored and excited. And yet, I am frightened at the unknown, just like a few months ago, when I performed for the Papayas and Bittermellon show for The Hawaii Women's Fund benefit in May. Then, I did not think of myself as a storyteller. Now, I realize this is one of the most profound methods to transform oneself and the world.
I am thinking of what it will mean to go as part of a delegation from Hawaii.
I have been reflecting on the contributions I can offer as one who sees through multiples lenses of settler and wandering second generation Ilocana/Igorot native removed from the Philippines, and raised on the east coast, and now here, living in Kalihi.
On the Storyfield blogs, there have been threads of conversation about connecting with indigenous peoples and the crafting of a new story for what David C. Korten is calling the Great Turning. David says, "It seems a hopelessly ambitions agenda, yet the key to success is elegantly simple: free ourselves from Empire's cultural trance by changing stories by which we define our possibilities and responsibilities."
My mind understands what this about, but my body, again is unsure. A few times, on the edge of moments in my life, I told new stories and sung new songs. But just like the land is occupied- I live with the stranger/dominator in my habits and daily living. I can not always sustain the change. I learn to negotiate a truce and make peace daily. In order to survive and to access resources, I had to master the Emperor's story. Forever, I am an altered native....
I wrote the below poem to prepare me for the conference. To help me remember how the Papaya and Bittermellon sisters allowed me to fumble through my narratives to finally find home in my words and shelter with them. I also wrote the poem to help me remember that I can trust that others can hold the complexity and let the old rigid stories go with me.
I included translations to help others understand who I am, the people I have come from, and who I am becoming. While the paranthesis somehow break the flow, sometimes that is how it is straddling worlds...
I am an altered Native
I do not know where I am going...
It is a place I have never been
Yet on this boundary of rooted place and routed no-place
between the pending ruin of empire and budding earth community
The newest satellite maps cannot chart a path
An altered native girl
cannot return
to rice terraces she had never climbed
she wears her tattoos (batek) on the inside
moves to gangsa (Igorot gong) rhthyms on stolen soil
makes "pagan" prayers and poetry to temporarily replace
ancestoral ogayams (Igorot chants) she never learned
This is the tawid (gift) of Kabunian's (Kankanay Igorot-Creator) divine mystery
"Leave me, anak (child)" she says, "And you will seek me everywhere you go."
"In the places you land, you must learn new names for me and
only after then... when you recognize yourself, can you return."
So I imagine my ancestors
Calling them to my side.
Be with me now
I cross the wai 'awa 'awa (Hawaiian-bitter waters)
to a land I cannot yet see
Let wisdom come forth out of hiding
your daughter calls
So they instruct me in making a stew of gabi (Ilocano-taro leaves) and shrimp.
They feed me pinikpikan (Igorot-burnt chicken)
They read the entrails for a prophecy waiting for the prophets
Over tea of Baraniw (Ilocano-lemongrass),
I tell them how I am learning:
about iwi (Hawaiian-bones of ancestors)
Unearthed from the aina (Hawaiian-land)
Olelo (Hawaiian-language) being restored.
learning how on this aina (Hawaiian-land),
Kalo(taro) is the elder sibling
And keiki are honoring- Papa (Earth mother) and Waikea (Sky Father) every day.
While making a salabat with luyang mura (young ginger),
I tell them of hula dancers in Waikiki
How this reminds me of our Lakkay (elders) in tapis (woven skirt) and wanis (loin cloth) posing for photos for tourists in Baguio
I tell them of and bright red plastic leis and
Tikis of Lono (Hawaiian God of Harvest)
And how this reminds me of the chocolate brown Bul-uls (the granary God of Ifugaos) for sale on Session road
Shedding bitter tears, we opt for something stronger
Cut sugar cane for basi (sugar cane wine), prepare rice for tapuy (rice wine)
Somewhere someone prepares awa
Together-awakened peoples of all lands
watch for the yeast of a new story to bubble and ferment
so we can feed hungry ghosts
quench the longing of thirsty diwata (spirits)
who haunt us and wander the weeping planet
I am deeply honored and excited. And yet, I am frightened at the unknown, just like a few months ago, when I performed for the Papayas and Bittermellon show for The Hawaii Women's Fund benefit in May. Then, I did not think of myself as a storyteller. Now, I realize this is one of the most profound methods to transform oneself and the world.
I am thinking of what it will mean to go as part of a delegation from Hawaii.
I have been reflecting on the contributions I can offer as one who sees through multiples lenses of settler and wandering second generation Ilocana/Igorot native removed from the Philippines, and raised on the east coast, and now here, living in Kalihi.
On the Storyfield blogs, there have been threads of conversation about connecting with indigenous peoples and the crafting of a new story for what David C. Korten is calling the Great Turning. David says, "It seems a hopelessly ambitions agenda, yet the key to success is elegantly simple: free ourselves from Empire's cultural trance by changing stories by which we define our possibilities and responsibilities."
My mind understands what this about, but my body, again is unsure. A few times, on the edge of moments in my life, I told new stories and sung new songs. But just like the land is occupied- I live with the stranger/dominator in my habits and daily living. I can not always sustain the change. I learn to negotiate a truce and make peace daily. In order to survive and to access resources, I had to master the Emperor's story. Forever, I am an altered native....
I wrote the below poem to prepare me for the conference. To help me remember how the Papaya and Bittermellon sisters allowed me to fumble through my narratives to finally find home in my words and shelter with them. I also wrote the poem to help me remember that I can trust that others can hold the complexity and let the old rigid stories go with me.
I included translations to help others understand who I am, the people I have come from, and who I am becoming. While the paranthesis somehow break the flow, sometimes that is how it is straddling worlds...
I am an altered Native
I do not know where I am going...
It is a place I have never been
Yet on this boundary of rooted place and routed no-place
between the pending ruin of empire and budding earth community
The newest satellite maps cannot chart a path
An altered native girl
cannot return
to rice terraces she had never climbed
she wears her tattoos (batek) on the inside
moves to gangsa (Igorot gong) rhthyms on stolen soil
makes "pagan" prayers and poetry to temporarily replace
ancestoral ogayams (Igorot chants) she never learned
This is the tawid (gift) of Kabunian's (Kankanay Igorot-Creator) divine mystery
"Leave me, anak (child)" she says, "And you will seek me everywhere you go."
"In the places you land, you must learn new names for me and
only after then... when you recognize yourself, can you return."
So I imagine my ancestors
Calling them to my side.
Be with me now
I cross the wai 'awa 'awa (Hawaiian-bitter waters)
to a land I cannot yet see
Let wisdom come forth out of hiding
your daughter calls
So they instruct me in making a stew of gabi (Ilocano-taro leaves) and shrimp.
They feed me pinikpikan (Igorot-burnt chicken)
They read the entrails for a prophecy waiting for the prophets
Over tea of Baraniw (Ilocano-lemongrass),
I tell them how I am learning:
about iwi (Hawaiian-bones of ancestors)
Unearthed from the aina (Hawaiian-land)
Olelo (Hawaiian-language) being restored.
learning how on this aina (Hawaiian-land),
Kalo(taro) is the elder sibling
And keiki are honoring- Papa (Earth mother) and Waikea (Sky Father) every day.
While making a salabat with luyang mura (young ginger),
I tell them of hula dancers in Waikiki
How this reminds me of our Lakkay (elders) in tapis (woven skirt) and wanis (loin cloth) posing for photos for tourists in Baguio
I tell them of and bright red plastic leis and
Tikis of Lono (Hawaiian God of Harvest)
And how this reminds me of the chocolate brown Bul-uls (the granary God of Ifugaos) for sale on Session road
Shedding bitter tears, we opt for something stronger
Cut sugar cane for basi (sugar cane wine), prepare rice for tapuy (rice wine)
Somewhere someone prepares awa
Together-awakened peoples of all lands
watch for the yeast of a new story to bubble and ferment
so we can feed hungry ghosts
quench the longing of thirsty diwata (spirits)
who haunt us and wander the weeping planet
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