A few days ago, somebody from Pandan asked me how their group could help propagate Kinaray-a culture. It seemed to be a straightforward question but, after a quick reflection, I realized the question was not as simple as I originally thought it was. In the first place, what is Kinaray-a culture?

When I was manager of ANIAD (Antique Integrated Area Development Project), we initiated and supported Kinaray-a writing contests in songs (both contemporary and the traditional composo), binalaybay or poetry, and nursery rhymes, as well as comedia productions in both the traditional form (as in Igbalangao, Bugasong) and the adapted form incorporating an Integrated Pest Management message (as in Barbaza). I am glad our efforts led to increased awareness and pride in our language and helped give rise to OKM (original Kinaray-a music) and the revival of the comedia.

But if culture was an onion then music, literature, and performance arts form just the outer layer in that they are the more readily sensed or experienced aspects of our culture, like other tangible manifestations such as paintings, sculpture, tools, clothing, handicraft, architecture, food, drinks, manners, rituals, and practices. If we want to look deeper, we need to ask – How do they use or reflect the language, symbols, learned functions, and beliefs of our people? (These four form the inner layer in our onion analogy.)

Let us not mistake culture for the old or traditional. Before OKM, for example, I have already heard Kinaray-a songs in San Francisco Sur in Tibiao, Gella in Patnongon, Igmasandig in Valderrama, and Flores in Culasi. And in the 1975 Binirayan pageant we sang and interpreted songs by a composer from Hamtic. Still, despite their age, it cannot be said right away that these song are more reflective of Kinaray-a culture than the current crop of pop songs. As all the songs, old and current, use Kinaray-a, we have to ask first – How does a particular song use our language? Because many Kinaray-a words are poly-syllabic, our language has a certain rhythm. If the song constrains this rhythm by using an unsuitable meter or genre then that is a minus factor. I recall an attempt to translate “Impossible Dream” into Kinaray-a; believe me, it was disastrous. Look at just the first four lines in the English version – nineteen of the twenty-three words there are mono-syllabic – and you expect to faithfully translate them into Kinaray-a and still fit the melody? Good luck.

It is far more difficult to ascertain if a song employs recognizable symbols, portrays learned functions, or expresses our beliefs. I doubt if many of us have the resolve and temperament to analyze each of our Kinaray-a songs this way. That is why I hesitate to introduce the even more indistinguishable concept of shared values as the determinant of culture. Some practices and artifacts, for example, are so utilitarian in themselves that it seems pointless to ask what are behind them. What values do patadyong-weaving and the patadyong (wrap) itself express? What values are behind mamâ (chewing bettlenut, lime, and leaves)? Or even when the values are clear, as in the case of dagyaw (communal action) and hil-o (exchange labor), we may find that they are really not unique to our culture.

Which brings me to the question – Is culture particular to a people and therefore unique? I do not think so. I consider Kinaray-a culture as a subset in a set of cultures, intersecting with many other subsets.

I am afraid I have written more questions than answers. But the search for what is truly our culture is not mine alone to make. I hope you will consider this just as a take-off point for your own inquiry.