Viv Yumul

Origins

All over the hot and humid areas of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, a giant herb rises like a tree. From a stem of sheaths packed into concentric rings, it opens up its large fluttering leaves to the sky. Bending downward, a purple-red 'heart' emerges, and reveals yellow flowers. Each becomes a slender fruit, and all the bunches together count up to two hundred spiraled cluster of hands. After the herb fruits, it dies, but only to thrive again in the form of new shoots springing from the rhizome. It persists to live for as long as it could.

Banana's sweet fruit and prolific nature had the people of the Kuk valley in New Guinea domesticate varieties that travelled to the islands of the Philippines. And perhaps significantly passed around by the island's sea-farers and the merchants, who are known to have engaged in a web of rich trades in the distant pre-colonial past, to be diffused in waves to the rest of Asia and the world. As far as it went, at noon breaks from plowing the rice fields, spontaneous accounts of its origins were casually spoken. One hears through the spaces in between chewing and swallowing bananas, one after another, outpourings of the intents and contents of the human mind and heart, whose timelessness easily empathized with the herb's shape. Of course, it came from a human hand! Of course, it grew into a 'tree'!

The depth of longing

The protruding heart-shaped blossom, all the more made the banana plant the perfect ending to the heart-breaking stories of forbidden love. Filipinos have composed the tale, time and again. In addition to illuminating the psychological fact, the larger cultural beliefs, and how they changed over time were reflected in the details.

What do they teach?

In Bicol, a curious girl, Malinay, was amused by the stories about forest beings, who eat sweet smelling food. She began to frequent the stream sides, and wandered near secluded caves, where the fairies were supposed to live. She was unaware that the son of the chief of fairies watched her every day. Completely mesmerized by her beauty, the fairy appeared as a man, named Baltong.

Other variations, referred to the fairy as the folk engkanto. They are the higher beings who dwell in the sky in a world divided into three: the underworld (below the earth), the middle layer and the sky world. In the forests, within the plane of the world of dreams, they live in monarchical societies, of kings, queens, and nobles... separated with a veil, as some stories say, due to humans exploiting their intelligence. But, once in a while, a fairy dares to use the portal out love, to meet a maiden, either brave enough to venture into the deep forests, or has the gift to communicate with the spirits.

Everywhere, the tale of the star-crossed lovers ends, soon after they soak in the revelation of their deep affection. The fairy's borrowed time in the human world had run out, according to law. He slowly vanishes with only his hand left to his weeping lover, for the maiden gripped as tightly as she could. Whether it was the hand or the lover's heart buried thereafter, the banana plant magically grows out of it, reaching out its heart and hands to the only human he loved. It is a kind of love that tirelessly create sweet fruits, a re-emergence into something good, from inevitable dissolution. Mythologizing somehow eases the human grasping for the transitory heavenly moment.

In another translation, where the Filipino characters had Spanish names, it was the overprotective and devouring father who created the split between the love of their daughter and a farmer. He chased the young man with a bolo and cut his hand off. The banana plant persistently reproduced, implying the local expression that "first love never dies".

The depth of insight

The ripened main starch is unlike any other food. Including the leaf, flower and bark, it is known to be an herbal remedy to all ailments. Malay women used to soak themselves in a brew concocted from banana leaves after giving birth, similar to the presently covert Filipino folk practice of hilot and babaylan therapy, where the leaves are prepared to be laid on the bare back, to accelerate the healing process of wounds, and as antioxidant among others.

The ancient people of India, began celebrating the miracle of the banana 'tree' in relation to the auspicious deity of the planet Jupiter, whose name means 'a teacher to men, to the gods, and lord of light'. One of our local variety's name also corresponds to the same meaning, like a residual link to the history of the oldest values. We call the plantain-like banana, Saba, similar to an African term that also refers to 'teacher', which denotes "the one who contemplates the deeper meaning and morality of things, and one who teaches through instruction and exemplary practice". (sageXXXX) Living close to men, the myth surrounding the banana tree became a vehicle in conveying a higher way of holding and conducting oneself.

Lanao, once a united Islamic kingdom in northern Mindanao, with epics older than the Indian masterpieces, shows in its origin story of the banana, a picture of a way to govern people. It was told that she was a wise and kind queen who ruled over the land of hills, vibrant fields and crystal clear rivers. The people adored her example, that they took the initiative to straighten their lives. The cockpits and gambling houses were set on fire, the farmers were inspired to work to produce more food, their individual homes, clean and orderly, and they obeyed the rules of the realm. For a long time, the queen rejected her suitors. For she was afraid that marrying one will cause war, even a prince whom she loved was turned away.

But the real enemy was the cousin of the queen, whose jealousy moved her to betray the kingdom by instructing the prince to execute his rivals and the queen's guards. When the queen heard of her malevolent plans through a magical bird, she grieved by herself. She ordered the people in the palace to go out, locked the gates, and burned the palace down, including herself. Out of her ashes, grew the banana plant. Its' ripened fruit was remembered as a gift of the sweet queen, and her cousin was turned into a monkey who especially favored eating the banana.

The heart of courage

Another gift of the herb is said to come from puso ng saging (banana blossom). Whoever desires to have extraordinary abilities, must look for an east facing blossom. At midnight, it opens where a mutya falls, and must be caught with the mouth. But, before one even gets too far from the herb, the many engkanto that live in it would try to steal it back. It is the man's ordeal to outwit them until sunrise, to successfully acquire incomparable strength. This old theme was resurrected in the classic local heroine, Darna, written in the 1950s in postwar Philippines, where through an ordinary woman, 'the warrior of light' reincarnates when she swallows the cosmic stone.

The relation of people with themselves, others and the world he is situated in, drastically changed, in the new practices marked by the coming of colonizers, that buried myths of magical relations with nature. The banana's tales of love, wisdom and the otherworldly, has been replaced by the story of the farmers' continued struggle. Where humans were aided in the past by supernatural beings, today it is up to them to recognize what matters again and strive for the ideal.