Bukidnon-Tagoloan tribe reclaims riverside sacred site
By Walter I. Balane
January 15, 2012

 MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/14 January) – Members of the Bukidnon-Tagoloan tribe today held a ritual symbolizing their recovery of a spring along the Sawaga River bank, which their ancestors had used as a traditional sacred site, even if a private hog slaughterhouse stands next to it now.

Braving the rains that poured the whole day today, descendants of of Datu Mampaalong and Datu Mansikiabo, renowned forefathers of the Bukidnon tribe in the pre-Hispanic period, attended the ritual called panendan in Sakub, the spring site, believed to be in this city’s original settlement area.

Anilaw Inlantong Erwin Marte, chair of the Bukidnon Unified Tribal Development Council of Elders Inc., which facilitated the activity said the event was “very significant” in the assertion of ownership of indigenous territories.

“At least we were able to retrieve the site for now after decades of neglect,” he told MindaNews after the ritual led by datus, baes and tribal elders.

In the panendan, the Bukidnon-Tagoloan tribe not only declared Sakub as a sacred site and fulfilled a forgotten tradition but also asserted their rights to their ancestral domain, he added.

Marte said it is a customary obligation of the indigenous peoples to continue the historical tradition as custodians. He recalled that the last panendan in Sakub was in the early 1990s, when an elderly baylan (shaman) did the ritual alone for years.

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