▶ Play Video 4. A Sound for the Spirits The Buklog of the Subanons\nThis is a shortened version of the Travel Time episode “A Subanon Celebration,” which was first aired on Filipino television on March 21, 1996. This episode has been modified from its original format.\n\nAnimals were offered in the context of the Subanon cultural ritual.\n\nThe Subanon or Subanun people of the upstream may be found on the western Peninsula. The population core areas are in Katipunan. The known subgroups parallel the linguistic variations and micro-adaptations to social and physical environment and comprise: (1) Misamis, (2) Lapuyan, (3) Sindangan, (4) Tuboy, and (5) Salug.\n\nThe cultural and technological adaptation is upland riverine. They practice swidden cultivation on mountain slopes. The traditional settlement pattern is highly dispersed with a few residential structures on top of ridges near potable water sources. The houses are placed adjacent to cultivated fields. They favor locations near springs where water gushes out of rocks over contiguous to streams.\n\nRice is the preferred food crop, but fields are also rotated and intercropped, planted with corn, sweet potato, and cassava. Land problems and soil degradation have forced some of the people to recourse to wet rice agriculture where the topography allows. Metal craft and backstrap weaving are practiced. They have maintained trade with coastal peoples for centuries, as indicated by the presence of Asian stone and ceramic trade wares. Present-day Subanon are usually nonaggressive. There are indications that in the past, the people were required to provide a “soul companion” for an important deceased relative.\n\nUnique to the Subanon is their set of rituals, the buklog, the main feature of which is a huge dancing platform (buklogan). This structure is raised some 10 to 18 feet high and consists of a highly resilient platform supported at the corners by upright posts. A long pole is passed through the middle of the platform and extends upwards like a maypole. Below it is a short thick hollowed log that lies above a trench filled with empty jars functioning as resonating chambers. The pole rises and falls when dancers rhythmically bounce on the platform. The booming sound invites people to come and join in the ritual and festival. There is feasting, wining, and dancing lasting for days, with as many as two hundred people dancing on the buklogan continuously, day and night.\n\nThe ritual consists of a complex set of rites performed before the culminating event, usually near waterways, and which serve to propitiate spirits. The buklog is a prestige ritual that has a multitude of functions, such as celebrating well- being and a good harvest, and giving thanks to appease spirits after an illness. It may also honor personalities, welcome back homecomers, or praise a new timuay (leader). Finally, it is held to pay respects to the spirits of the dead, for the final sending of the spirit of the ancestor and the death anniversary of a grandparent.\n\nThe Subanen form a subgroup and are related to the Subanon but are concentrated in Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte.

▶ Play Video 5. Ang mga Banal na Krus ng Mayo\nThis episode was first aired on Filipino television on June 6, 1996. This episode has been modified from its original format.\n\nConsidered to be the largest of the Filipino ethnic groups, the Tagalog are concentrated in the metropolitan area of Manila and spread out as the major population of nearby provinces, such as Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, Batangas, Bulacan, and Nueva Ecija. This is a highly urbanized group occupying the very well-developed regions of the country, where the centers of national government are located.\n\nThe national language is actually being built around Tagalog, which is now understood and spoken in other parts of the country. One of the oldest forms of the spoken language is called sinaunang tagalog, and used to be spoken in the municipality of Tanay, Rizal. During the introduction of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family of anguages, it was pushed northeastward to the areas around the Zambales mountain ranges. Only a small group of Negrito at the foot of Mt. Pinatubo speak the language today.\n\nThe Tagalog are associated with all kinds of agricultural production, usually monocropping with rice as the main crop, silviculture, animal husbandry, and industrial production. They are also engaged in international marketing, politics, and foreign relations. They are equally adept at fish culture--both marine and freshwater--in man-made ponds and cages in waterways.\n\nThe kinship structure is essentially bilateral, with offspring considered linked equally to both parents, and inheritance following the same pattern, although in practice, it takes on a more cognatic nature. In the urban areas and where large properties are concerned, there is a tendency for a lineal distribution of wealth and property in the manner of corporations. Members of the group are involved in all sectors of government practice and in private institutions at the national and international levels. Such an advantage is reflected in the development of the Tagalog in contrast with other ethnic groups. Presently, however, with the development of infrastructure throughout the country, a larger portion of the population is now part of mainstream culture. The index of culture has leveled out within the group such that the subgroups are indistinguishable from one another, except in terms of spoken language.\n\nThe Tagalog are highly Christianized, with the majority belonging to the Roman Catholic Church and the rest dispersed in various homegrown sects, such as the nationalistic Aglipay and the Iglesia ni Cristo. Thus, much of the festivities are founded on Christian liturgy and belief systems.