Lamuwan Kata: We are One – Bridging indigenous and Christian spirituality

Lamuwan Kata: We are One – Bridging indigenous and Christian spirituality

By Lilac L. Caña

GLOUSTER, OHIO–The Center for Babaylan Studies (CfBS) hosted its 2015 Symposium from May 22-24, 2015, on the theme of “Mabungang Panaghinabi / Fruitful Conversations: Bridging Indigenous and Christian Traditions of Spirituality”. Some 40 participants gathered together – from the Philippines, U.S.A. and Canada – at the breathtaking Burr Oak Lodge & Conference Center, to co-create in this transformative, soul-nurturing weekend.

Three of our Canadian contingent from Toronto and Montreal drove a leisurely 7.5 hours to this gorgeous, almost hidden valley in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains – traditional land of the Iroquois and Algonquian nations. Surrounded with tall old trees, rolling green hills, and a serenely emerald Burr Oak Lake, this was the ideal setting for our conference.

On the first night, resource speaker Fr. Albert Alejo, S.J. (affectionately called Pareng Bert), shared his insights about Loob (the inner self), as it connects with Kapwa (shared being). The Loob he explained, is a whole web of meaningful relationships, generating cultural energies that build community, that help us see our inner self as one with each other and all of Creation. We are like islands, he said, seemingly unconnected to each other from the surface perspective, but that from a deeper ground – are interwoven and inherently unified. Significantly, Pareng Bert is a key ally in the indigenization movement in the Philippines, actively working to facilitate dialogue and understanding among Christian, Muslim, and Indigenous leaders in Mindanao.

The following day, we all descended towards the water for our morning ritual invocation, led by Grace Nono (Ph.D.), an oralist/chanter/scholar/artist who has spent two decades learning from babaylans (shamans) and indigenous oralists and chanters of the Philippines. Her mesmerizing chants simultaneously awoke our spirits and energized our perceptions, as we saluted the morning sun of the symposium’s most jampacked day. Later that day, along with featured Roundtable Storytelling guests, she shared her experiences of “Diverse Spiritual Journeying”, along with indigenous healer, researcher and initiated prayer ritualist, Erlinda “Arlene” Natocyad (Ph.D.); and American educator, cultural worker, and practicing Roman Catholic, Cynthia White Tindongan (Ph.D).

Another keynote speaker, Carmen Manalac-Scheuerman (Ph.D.), a Kapampangan culture-bearer of Aeta ancestry, recently completed her doctoral dissertation on indigenous lifeways, values and spiritual practices of the Aeta community in Capas, Tarlac. A Methodist pastor who rediscovered her Aeta heritage, she had felt a missing piece fulfilled; she spent 8 months living and working among Christianized Aetas to help them recover their indigenous culture and spirituality. Her impassioned talk culminated in a powerful moment we all witnessed that day: moved by a vision, she declared to us her new name, Lamuwan.

Lamuwan kata means “we are one.” It speaks of the relational connectivity that ties a tribe, a community, a people together. On our final day of the symposium, this connectivity was embodied in a ritual we all shared, led by Ifugao Mombaki/shaman, Mamerto Tindongan, who invited us to symbolically help build his Traditional Ifugao Healing Hut on his land. He received a vision that he should build this hut and perform a ritual of healing and reconciliation on the site of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair where tribal Filipinos were taken to be displayed as savages and barbarians as justification for the U.S.’ civilizing mission and occupation of the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century. His vision is to bring together the descendants of those who were involved in this project to heal the aftermath of colonial trauma.

I was among a group of participants he invited to walk into the woods surrounding his verdant home, find and carry a fallen log which was to become a supporting beam for his Hut, and celebrate together over a community feast, before we parted ways. Fr. Albert also celebrated a Mass in the forest, for those who felt comfortable with this Christian rite, inviting people to contribute their personal testimonies during the shared homily.

Through group creative presentations, jam sessions, bonfires every night, tears and laughter and sharing authentic Filipino meals with kindred beings from the diaspora, Lamuwan Kata took root on a deeper, more meaningful level. As a Filipino-Canadian Cebuana singer and financial broker, who often felt fragmented growing up in two cultures, I felt all my “selves” come together as one, with familiar new friends worldwide. In the words of Fr. Albert, “You feel you want to go back to the Motherland because your Loob is in the land, in the relational connectivity. Our culture is not lost, it is in the land, the trees, the ocean, the sound, and when we connect to it we see it is within… I am the dream my ancestors dreamed would free them.”