Rediscovering the North - Part 2- TUNGNGOD, LAGAWE - home of the HUDHUD singers

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I was up at 4:00am.... actually I did not have any choice but to be up early.. I was awaken by the crowing of the roosters which served as my alarm clock. They sounded like there were more than 500 roosters crowing at the same time with a sprinkling of ducks quacking, dogs barking as their chorus. And another thing that also woke me up that morning.... there was an earthquake at 4:00am. Vangie and Iggy slept thru the earthquake. I prepared my coffee and stayed by the balcony to wait for sunrise... I wanted to take a photo of Lagawe at sunrise.

At 6:30am... the rest of the group came over to the inn and we drove to TUNGNGOD ( 4 kms from Lagawe town proper ), where Iggy had to take a video of  15 little kids of Tungngod Elementary School singing the Hud hud.

When we arrived --- everyone was getting ready for the shoot....

According to Miss Fatima  -- the youngest singer is only 9 years old. The eldest in the group is 12 years old and this will be her last year to sing the Hud Hud. The little kids of Tungngod Elementary School has been joining competitions and winning awards for the past years. They have been invited to perform in Baguio and now they will be performing in Manila in May for the Philippine Heritage Month 2010 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The Hud Hud has been proclaimed by the UNESCO in 2001 as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The Hud hud epic is a narrative chant about ( Aliguyun and Hananya  ) the mythical heroes of the Ifugaos and is preformed during the harvest rituals and wakes. The Hud Hud is chanted to break the monotony of the backbreaking physical labor while weeding and harvesting crops.  There are more than 200 versions of the Hud Hud. One complete narrative may take anywhere from 3 to 4 days.

After the little kids sang the Hud Hud... it was the turn of the elders of Tungngod to chant the narrative. They also chanted the Liwliwa which is a jovial parody done by the male and female singers chanting alternately. We were able to interview them. We found out that the Hud Hud has been passed down thru generations.

They also performed their ritual dance for us. A stylized version of this dance will be featured also in our Philippine Heritage Month at the Cultural Center of the Philippines ( CCP ). The performance will be on May 21 and 22.

The group had their lunch .... and I had INLAGIM again!!! This time chicken was used. I liked the one I had the night before. The chicken was cooked the same way but the soup was not as tasty as the duck soup.  Their pinakbet was very good too. For dessert we had the Ifugao version of pichi-pichi. Their pichi pichi was not like the one from Laguna which is soft and gooey... their version is a bit harder.

After lunch we all headed back to our hotel and got our luggages... We were off to Banawe!!!