SIL Philippines

A Voice From Mt. Apo:

Oral and written essays on the culture and world view of the Manobo

Written and recounted by Manuel Arayam and others
Translated and annotated by Ena E. Vander Molen
Foreword by Gloria M. Mudanza

A Voice From Mt. Apo: xxiii, pp 275

The Obo Manobo language is spoken by a group of people by that name living on the north and west slopes of Mt. Apo on the boundary between Davao del Sur and Cotabato and several surrounding provinces of southwest Mindanao, Philippines. The Obo Manobo language belongs to the Manobo subfamily, which is part of the Philippine branch of the Austronesian language family and is spoken by approximately 50,000 to 80,000 people.

A Voice From Mt. Apo was inspired by A Voice From the Hills, a collection of essays on the culture and worldview of the Western Bukidnon Manobo people written by Francisco Col-om Polenda. A Voice From Mt. Apo too began as a vision of one man, Tano Bayawan who desired to document the culture and worldview of the Obo Manobo (henceforth only referred to as Manobo) ancestors for the younger generation that was forgetting the ways of the past. He also wanted other people to gain a better understanding of who the Manobo people are. He passed away before his vision could be fulfilled. This book has been dedicated to him. Besides essays written by Tano before he died, thirteen other contributors make up a kaleidoscope of over forty items employing various genres of story, personal and traditional history, essay, poetry and song. As a kaleidoscope reflects changes of position of bits of colored glass, each reflects various aspects of changing life along the slopes of Mt. Apo giving a window, in particular, to the ways of the past.

The Manobo reader inside the window will learn more about his own culture. The reader outside the window looking in will get a glimpse of both the colorful uniqueness of the Manobo culture and on the flip side, its familiarity / ordinariness as issues that concern all mankind are dealt with, such as birth, marriage, illness, unexplained phenomena and death. A Voice From Mt. Apo will be of great interest to the reader seeking to learn more about minority culture groups in the Philippines.

An analyzed text and brief write-up on pronouns and case-marking particles in the appendix will be of interest to linguists. Each text is given in Manobo and English, with numerous cultural and linguistic annotations. Most texts include an illustration drawn by Melchor Bayawan, Tano's gifted cousin who was adopted by Tano's parents and brought up as Tano's younger brother. It is the hope of the compilers that this volume will, in some small way, help people from different cultures understand one another a bit better as well as appreciate each other's uniqueness more.

2005. Manila: LSP. ISBN: 971-780-021-9 (Linguistic Society of the Philippines Special Monograph Issue, 51)

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