Documenting Indigenous Tribal Memory: Folktales of the Vanaws, Northern Philippines

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ENTRY: Yoneno-Reyes, Michiyo, Scott Magkachi Saboy, & Lawrence Andrew Reid, eds. 2022. Documenting Indigenous Tribal Memory: Folktales of the Vanaws, Northern Philippines as Narrated by Barcelon P. Panabang. Tokyo: Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia/The University of Tokyo.

CO-EDITOR'S NOTES

It has taken a whole village to produce this book of 30 pieces of um-umag 'fictive and non-fictive narratives'. Yes, this is a work of scholars, and editing (transcription from raw audio files, translation, proofreading) had been long and challenging, something which perhaps only those who do this stuff can fully appreciate. But in a sense, this book is a distillation of the stories and wisdom of our ancestors; it is also the product of collaboration among so many language experts and culture bearers in the Vanaw community and its partners. Michiyo started recording Barcelon Panabang's um-umag 'stories' almost two decades ago with the assistance of Mr. Panabang's son Warren, while I and my former colleagues at UP Baguio began our Vanaw language documentation project a decade ago. The initial transcription and translation made during the time of Mr. Panabang had to be put aside for future reference and we had to work afresh based on the working orthography which we were able to put together earlier after a community consultation in Balbalasang in 2013. It was an honor working with Michiyo and Laurie, highly successful scholars who have kept their feet planted on the ground, foreigners whom I consider Igorots by heart. I remember all our relatives who had worked with us, whose voices now remain only in our recordings. How I miss them! There is just so much to be done with so little time and resources, but we will continue the work we started in honor of those who have gone ahead to that grand ancestral mountain. - SMS