English - Balay Mindanaw

Part 2 - Four Datus: Stories of the Higaunon LifeAs a child, Amay Mantangkilan enjoyed hunting in the forest all by himself.Mantangkilan recounted the incident:“I had no plan to go to the forest as I wanted to help in thefarm because it was rice harvest season. But my dog, maybeout of habit, went past the farm and into the forest. I just lether be. But then she saw a deer, and ran after it. The deer rantowards the farm, and the dog came chasing, so imagine thedamage both did to the farm. My dog finally caught up withthe deer along the side of the rice paddies. My mother was somad at me because she thought it was my idea. Nevertheless,I immediately ran towards the deer, and stabbed it with aknife. But it didn’t die soon enough, and was still able to run.So I tried to catch it, but my g-string caught a branch, whichleft me naked for all the people to see. There were so manypeople around because the whole community was helping inthe harvest. Looking for something to cover my private parts,I saw the big leaves of the taluangi tree. It was okay for a while,but when I sat down, the leaves got torn apart. It was such arelief when my father came.”Because of this embarrassing incident, Amay Mantangkilanstarted to wear pants. When he was almost 15 years old, he47