Ding Mikapatad a Suku at Malyari

LIVING BETWEEN TWO VOLCANOES
How the volcanic activities of Arayat and Pinatubo shaped landscapes and mindscapes in the Kapampangan Region


By Joel Pabustan Mallari


Chain folkstories
The strong imaginative character of figurative understanding of natural landmarks in Kapampangan is not an exclusive and unique culture to claim. But it may be looked upon as a way of how the people treated this landscape then and now and then. Mythically speaking, the mountains of Arayat and Pinatubo always been looked as “gods” and “supernaturals”. Mt. Arayat is often impersonated variously as Suku, Sinukuan, and Apulaki in some folktales; while Mt. Pinatubo is often regarded as the brother (or sometimes a sister) of Mt. Arayat known as Maliari, Namalyari by the Aitas, Mayari in some folktales, Pungsalang etc. The general run of the story indicates the partitioning of rulership of one whole day, which is during daytime the “sun god” who resides from the Mt. Arayat rules and during the night stretch the “moon god” that hails in the Pinatubo mountain takes over. The daytime ruler have brighter eyes that makes the day time bright and the nighttime ruler with his/her one eye blinded (struck by his/her brother’s spear) by his/her brother reduced his/her glow thus becoming dimmer at nighttime.

Geophysical trait
Mt. Arayat was often regarded as the eastern mountain which has some basis especially if it is considered by its “other spelling” as alaya. This term is noted in the 1860 Bocabulario of Fray Diego Bergano. It is in this aspect where questions of direction arise. One question is regarding to the relativity of its being “eastern”, east of what? East of Pinatubo, perhaps. If that is the case, who lives beside the Pinatubo area – at present this “area” is predominantly peopled by at least 2 groups of Aitas and the Kapampangans.

What determines the direction of east and west can be relatively relied on the cycle of the sun’s movement: the sun rise from the east and sets from the opposite end, in the west. If that is so, Mt. Arayat’s location justifies its being “eastern” and relatively locates Pinatubo as the west end. Indeed, the location that sets them apart actually forms a virtual division that creates a place for the affected observers. Thus the demarcation of this observers’ location places its position to the present provinces of Pampanga and Tarlac.

Philosophical “sun”
By extracting the key concepts of chained folktales, the “god” that the people see are considered figuratively as both “sun” and “king” combined. Epistemologically speaking, the Kapampangan “aldo” and “ari” share concepts among their cognates to other Southeast Asian languages (Austronesians). Natural phenomena in the sky are significantly considered to them as “god” or “god’s works”, example in Indonesia, “matahari” is the sun, while “bahaghari” and “pinanari” is the rainbow word to the Tagalogs and Kapampangan respectively which both literally mean as sun’s loincloth. The fact that the ancient word “ari” in Kapampangan meant as the sun is very similar to Tagalog “arao”, thus making it as a significant reference at least for the early sense of direction, the ancient setting of time and so forth which heavily dictates the evolving culture of the early people(s) in the area. This concept may have been regarded and revered such that the sun becomes a “king” for its importance and “highness” and is woven to folkstories as part of early people’s memory handling. In fact, a prominent Kapampangan surname – Mallari and the known Aitas’ god Namalyari bear the same etymological meaning as “precious sun”, which only indicates the significance of this brightest celestial body known and popular to ancient people.

Finding ancient kapangpangan setting
Kapangpangan or kapampangan as a place actually refers to the region of riverbanks or coastal areas. This setting is dependent on the ever changing and active movements of river patterns since most of the major rivers in the present lower half of the Central Plain have their headwaters originating from the slopes of Mt. Pinatubo. In some geological studies, it was hypothesized that the palaeoshoreline of Pampanga is traceable up to the area of Guagua and Bacolor, thus making the old kapangpangan setting located on the middle part up to the present Tarlac-Pampanga.

On the other hand, as it was generally known that the sun rises in the east, the initial impression is something to be expected at least for the early settlers of this region. In consequence, it already explains the understanding of how the ancient people see the location of Mt. Arayat as “alaya”, the dawn which makes Mt. Arayat as the “eastern mountain”. This might also explain the old term “sucu”, which is defined by Fray Bergano as “the terminal or end (indeterminate end)”, and in this case the rising point and fullness of the sun’s light (and shape). Can this explains or contradicts the “growth” of the other, which is the literal definition of the Pinatubo name? Other namesakes associated to Pinatubo include Pungsalang, which is regarded as the “god of enmity”. Is it because of Pinatubo’s early active state as what early people probably witnessed when it brought ancient volcanic disaster in the region? The dim image of Pinatubo might be associated to the setting sun as it was idiomatically called before as sucsucan ning aldo, which literally means the “sun that pricks” referring to the location on the western direction, known as albugan, or kalunuran. It is in same way the term paroba is assigned which refers to the westward direction directly opposite paralaya. Just imagine how stunning is the imagination and their strong dense of direction of this early people, seeing Suku as a “bright god”, the “precious sun” that ascends from the east at the back of the silhouette of Arayat mountain and attains its “pangasucu” at noon time and being complemented by the setting grace of Maliari in the west as it is drowned by the ruggedness of Zambales Mountains especially when it becomes meguintalang, the reddened sun as it nears the horizon mentioned by Fray Diego Bergano in his 1732 work.

Another cycle of natural phenomena breaks this daily pattern at least every several generations which is the erupting activities of Mt. Pinatubo. The eruptive history of this volcano has had records of its last two periods prior to the last 1991, namely the Maraunot eruptive period (~3,900-2,300 yr B.P.) and Buag eruptive period (~1500 yr B.P.) which affected the lives of these early inhabitants. The fact that archeological findings already presented evidences of large habitation sites in Porac and in San Marcelino, Zambales, at various stages of time as early as even before the Maraunot eruptive period in Porac. This only proves that these particular areas were once populated and repopulated for several period during the course of the Pinatubo eruptive history.

Fitting puzzles of Arayat, Pinatubo and Kapampangan
It is in this synthesis of understanding, where the early spot of the old coastal area of Pampanga can be partly traced. Firstly, if the location of Mt. Arayat proves to be directly found on the east, it relatively locates the opposite land most likely the earlier deltaic plain now thickly covered by the present land area of Tarlac-Pampanga boundary. Secondly, this area is actually the central portion that covers most likely the ancient fanning action of sediments brought by the major rivers that originate from the slopes of Mt. Pinatubo. According to geologist Christopher Newhall, around 2,000 years after the rise of the sea level, another major eruptive history of Mt. Pinatubo occurred, dubbed as the Crow Valley Eruptive Period (~6,000-5,000 yr B.P.) which was during the early part of this activity where at least four thick pyroclastic flows also form prominent layers and terraces in the present Sacobia River. Today this area covers much of the present site of the Tarlac-Pampanga boundary which was formerly known as La Alta Pampanga during the Spanish Period. These fluvial deposits blankets the lower area of the future sugar land of Tarlac Province, emplaced, voluminous pyroclastic-flow deposited among the headwaters of the O’Donnell River which were the source of fluvial sediments forming the present rich sandy loams. Thus if there were already people residing in this old area, most likely that they later migrated southward moving away from the Pinatubo area towards the newly reclaimed land in the south which is now part of coastal Pampanga. The location of Mt. Arayat and the mountain group of Pinatubo in Zambales provide focal point of direction and location of people(s) found living or situated between them which is prescisely the old Kapampangan setting, the old deltaic plain. It is in this case that the old alluvial plain which is relatively much lower in elevation compared to the present area of the Tarlac-Pampanga boundary, that the early settlers in the area have seen the highness of altitude of both mountains. It is this perspective that these two giant natural features appear more striking as landmarks to the immediate universe of these early settlers. The palaeoenvironment of the former plain made them farmers of the plain and fishermen of the rivers and coast. It is probably for the same reason that the sun and the moon played both as “ari”, the “mikapatad a aldo at bulan” in sustaining their dependency of livelihood and the intricate weaving of their belief system toward their old kapangpangan land.